Undercurrents 06 March-April 1974

Undercurrents 06 March-April 1974

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UNDERCURRENTS, the magazine of radical science and alternative technology [ISSN 0306 2392], was published from London, England, from 1972 to 1984 [No. 60]. This text version has been created in 2006-8 by me, Chris [Hutton-]Squire [a member of the now-dissolved Undercurrents Collective], by OCRing scanned images of a print copy; the text has been spell-checked but it has NOT been checked against the original. Parts of UC06 were typed rather than typeset: these pages have been omitted from this version or only partially corrected.Health & Safety Warning: The practical, technical and scientific information herein [though believed to be accurate at the time of publication] may now be out of date. CAVEAT LECTOR! The many stories that Undercurrents told will interest students of a period that is both too distant and too recent to be adequately documented on the Web. The moral, philosophical, social, economic and political opinions herein remain, in my opinion, pertinent to the much more severe problems we now face. Readers who wish correspond on any matters arising are invited to contact me via: chris[at]cjsquire.plus.com

This pdf version is formatted in 15 pt Optima throughout, so as to be easily readable on screen; it runs to 105 pages [the print versions were 48 - 56 pp.]: readers wishing to print it out to read are recommended to get the text from the .doc or text versions and to reformat it. The many pictures that embellished the print version are sadly not included here. There are no restrictions on the use of this material but please credit individual authors where credit is due: they are mostly still with us. Page numbers below are for this pdf version. The beginning of each section or article is indicated thus:

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UNDERCURRENTS Number 6 March-April 1974 Contents: Eddies:Digging for victory ........... 6 Dinorwic ........... 8 BRAD .................. 10 Acoustic Ecology ......... 12 Eddie Currents ....... 14Cuba .................. 16 Letters ........... 18 John Wood: Alternative Electronics ........... 20 Pete Stellon: Heat Pumps ........... 25 John Shore: Organic Living .....…… [not included] J Raphe: Windmills .............. 36 Peter Harper: Guide to AT .......... 43 Petrol Stinks ............. 54 LID: It's a Gas ............ 26 [not included]George Woolston: Peoples' Water Power ..... 59 Peter Harper: What's Left of AT ........ 67 Geoff Watts: Sense of Tumor ........ 80 An AgitKrop Manifesto ........... 82Gavin Browning: Science Fiction ........... 85 Colin Wilson: Dark Side of the Mind ........... 89 Tony Durham: Secret Life of Plants ........... 94 Tony Durham: Shelter. ..........… 98 David Gardiner: Energy Scrapbook ........... 100 Martin Ince: How It Works 102Everbeenadne ........... 104The Cast ........... 105

SUBSCRIPTIONS £2.00 for six issues by surface mail anywhere. Air mail rates on request. Single copies and back issues, 35p including postage. To avoid being ripped off. we have decided to copyright ® articles in UNDERCURRENTS from now on. But we will give permission freely to nonprofit groups who wish to reproduce material, without charge, provided they give credit to UNDERCURRENTS. Small ADS ... It is UNDERCURRENTS policy not to carry display advertising. but we do include small ads as a service to readers. Small Ads cost Ip per word, up II to a maximum of 150 words (bigger ads by arrangement). and must be pre·paid. RADICAL SCIENCE JOURNAL ,Number 1: January '74. I The aim of the journal is to provide a forum for serious and extended analyses of the history. philosophy.


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ideology)·· and current practice of the sciences, from a radical perspective. The journal is edited by a collective. The journal will appear three times a year. Contents of this issue: Jack Stauder · The relevance of Functionalist Anthropology to Colonialism and Imperialism. Mike Hales · Management Science and the "Second Industrial Revolution. ,. David Dickson · Technology and the Social Construction of Reality. Reviews by: Brian Easlea, Modes of Thought by R Horton and Finnegan. David Albury, Scientific Knowledge and it::: Social Problems by J It Ravetz. Contents of future issues include: Robert Young · The Ideology of nature · an Interpretation of Lysenkoism. Gary Werskey · Radical Scientists: The Uses of History. Articles on: Abortion, Automation. Operations Research. Reviews of books by: J Habermas, W Leiss, R Jay, B Easlea, T Schroyer, T Roszak. Single copies 30p per issue. Annual subscriptions (for three issues): £1 post paid for individuals. £3 post paid for libraries. Air mail subscrip·tions on application. I WALDEN TWO, a novel by B S Skinner (Macmillan paperback) is a book outlining his ideas on a behavioural/ experimental·based community. Twin Oaks (Louisa, Virginia 23093, USA) is a six year·old community. based on Walden Two lines, that publishes literature on their history. Between them they represent the theory and practice of the idea. We would like to know of any people who arc interested in forming a similar community in this country. (If there already is one, what is your address?) If there are such people, we shall be delighted to organise a weekend meeting to exchange ideas. discuss possibilities. etc. Several points though: the basic philosophy is scientific/rational, · in this country it seems likely that a high proportion of outside work would be necessary, i.e. conventional jobs for half the labour force at anyone time · if anything along the above lines is to b· established, with property prices as they are, unfortunately capital will be needed as well as people. Sorry if this all sounds a bit fierce. but if anything is to start. the initial people will have to be fairly efficient/ organisation·minded. So if you are interested, please write to us. We will allow two weeks from the publication of this information before assessing interest and replying. (S.a.e. or re·use sticker would be appreciated). John and Sally, Chance "1\\'0. Dicks Lane Wharf, Rowington Green. Warwicks.SELF·MANAGEMENT AND/OR RADICAL TECHNOLOGY, Read "In the Making", a directory of proposed productive projects, 1974 edition, from 71 Thirlwell Road, Sheffield 8. (SOp sub. or 15p each inc.. post). Read the new FREE EARTH magazine. The contents are now divided into 3 main sections: INFORM A TIOX ON ALTERNATIVES including articles, practical know·how social change. reviews and news, etc ..... INNER/OUTER SPACE a section devoted to the Occult, Astral Projection, ESP, philosophies, Star People .... Also the beginning of ANDROGYNE which is an embryonic movement for people who feel androgyne. CLASSIFIED SECTiON including useful contacts all over the UK as well as abroad. plus FREELY INSERTED personal messages. We are a non·profit publication and we barely cover our 'total expenses. If you want: copy. you can either send 14· + 4p postage for the current issue, or, preferably, subscribe. Send SOp for 3 issues. or £1 for 6 which covers one year (bi·monthly printing), to: 103 South Street, Lancing, Sussex.


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Eddies: DIGGING FOR VICTORY . . a stage that not only exceeds our real requirements but also exploits the Earth in a way that cannot continue;'declared the People party. Not much difference there, you might say_ Digger leaflet: .. As world demand outstrips supply, and as the financiers play the commodities market, prices of imported food will rise. We can and must produce more food at home". People pamphlet:" on agriculture. " to make Britain self·sufficient since, as world population grows and with it, the demand for food, it will become increasingly difficult for Britain to find countries with surpluses to export." Pretty much the same, it would seem. The verdict of the electors on each group was much the same, too. Teddy Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist and co·author of Blueprint for Survival, swept People to a landslide defeat at Eye in Suffolk ..... with 395 votes (the Tories did slightly better, with 23.486) And the 369 votes cast for Susan Inkster, the Cambridge undergraduate Digger candidate, really made the Tory's 24,219 votes look insignificant. But the differences between the two parties are much more significant than their similarities. The reference in the Digger manifesto to "financiers playing the commodity market" is curiously without parallel in the People pamphlets ·· a quirk that is entirely unrelated to the fact that:1t People '9 Teddy Goldsmith is · brother of Jimmy Goldsmith Chairman of one of Britain's most successful food conglomerates, Cavenham Foods, which owns Liptons supermarkets, a chain of health food shops, and numerous other speculative ventures. The Diggers I reference to exploitation of the under·developed world is also strangely absent from People 1 literature. Exploitation, indeed. is hardly mentioned in People tracts. The party says it wants to ··· ·... ·· "reduce income differentials", but claims it has "no wish to bash the rich". But for the Diggers, exploit·ation is the key issue:"Only people matter ·· not 'efficiency' (more profit for the bosses), or 'moderation' (retaining the present inequity). " The differences bet'w'een the parties illustrate vividly the split It between the Right and Left wings of what was once optimistically called the Environmental movement. So far, the Right wing is making all the running. People. though it says it has "no backers and no money". put up a total of six candidates, and plans to field no less than 600 at the next election, which could be very soon. The Diggers, on the other hand, had just £20 to spend on their campaign. And although they believe Parliament and the Party game to be largely irrelevant, they reckon it was worthwhile. Says Martin Hichards, the Digger election agent :"We achieved something ·· at several party meetings we turned the discussion to real issues, and we got a lot of good local press coverage "Next time, with a bit more money, we could produce some much more effective publicity. "


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A drop o'the 'black stuff"Mystery STILL surrounds what appear to be the first commercial:\1 hydrocarbon strikes in the Celtic Sea, a mystery not unconnected with the present absurdly generous Irish offshore policy · a policy which m:\k('s Edward Ik:1th look like Colonel (::tclaCfi. The" start of this particular saga. was in 1969 when :l combination ofbck of int('r('st :tnd brighter pros·pects elsewhere left the small American company "lar:Marathon as 501(' concessionaires for 40,300 km:? of Continental shelf running :almost the entire length of the Southern Irish coast, The agreement committed "marathon to spend · · million in exploration and was subject to renewal every five years, up to. a maximum of three renewals, provided minimal investment conditions were met. After a 1970 seismic study, interest center round the but refused to say more. However it was the most recent Well, 49/29·1 which really set the rumours flying. unofficial estimates of its productive potential ran up to several times the entire Irish consumption of gas, but marathon have officially declared it dry · while at the same time refusing all farm·out offers. The reasons for this silence are not hard to divine. The virtual absence of a produc·tion and marketing policy by the lrish Government means that the Cinder has the whip hand. No doubt "Marathon will do usual :North Sea trick of Kinsale Head structure south of Cork. Wells drilled in November 1971 and February 1972 encountered gas flows which, after evaluation. ::\marathon deemed non·commercial. but which were obviously promising enough to start the big boys sniffing around again, since Esso took up a 50 per cent share in 53 blocks held by Marathon·at a price believ·ed to be more than "Marathon paid for their entire concession. Well 49/ 11·1 was rumoured to have encountered heavy oil flows and then in August 197:1 :\marathon announced that Well 49/16·2 had encountered 'substantial quantities of gas' ·pleading enormous costs, · huge risks, terrible weather . and frightening technical difficulties while at the same time claiming that the quanti·ties of gas found is so small as to be barely worth their while and that in fact they are doing the Irish Government a great favour by bringing it ashore at all. Other knowledgeable (cynical) observers of the oil scene prefer to see the. reticence as the result of Marathon being a small minnow in the same pool as some very nasty sharks. It has been suggested that the find is so big that Marathon are quite incapable of handling it and if its true size were announced then they would be engulfed simultaneously by Irish demands for nationalization or its ilk and the international giants scrambling for a piece of the action. We shall see, me boys, we shall see,. , .. ,


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DINORWIC ‘Anyone who crosses the CECB is treading on broken glass’Europe’s largest pumped storage electric·ity scheme received its final legislative seal of approval at the end of 1973. Passed without a division, and with only two speakers against. the North Wales Hydro Electric Power Bill gave permiss·ion to the CEGB to construct 1500 l\1W of generating capacity at a cost of 1: 108 m in Dinorwic in Caernarvonshire. a proposal which has been questioned not only on technical, economic and environmental grounds but on whether it is is needed at all. The CEGB scheme involves turning two of the most picturesque lakes in Wales into reservoirs. A 39 m dam will be built across ·tarchlyn Mawr in the Snowdonia National Park. Some 500m below l\1archlyn Mawr a lower reservoir would he created by constructing 9m high rockfill dams at both ends of Uyn Peris, at the foot of the Llanberis Pass, below Snowdon. The two lakes are connected by a tunnel which runs through six pump·turbine sets, installed in an underground cavern. The idea is to generate power during peak periods by running the water from upper to lower lake and to pump it back again using the generators as pumps, during the night when electricity demand is low. Dinorwic is supposed to do this for 100 to 200 hours a year at winter peaks and for a further 1000 to 2000 of ‘merit order operation’ · a process in which CEGB calls in plant successively to meet the load in order of the cost or ‘merit’ of its operation. Following a ‘re·valuation’ in 1971·2 the CECB proposed that the scheme would also provide 5000 hours a year of ‘instant reserve’. By keeping the water flowing at 14 per cent of maximum, the turbines will be kept spinning at a speed synchronous with the National Grid, ready to be raised to maximum within ten seconds if a failure occurs elsewhere in the grid. Using this scheme the CECB claims a net saving of £4.Sm annually over any alternative method of providing flexible power response. However as Amory Lovins has pointed out in an article in :New Scientist, 31st May 1973, the CECD’s arithmetic is not all it might be. It turns out that the figure of £4.Sm a year saved is arrived at by ascribing no capital cost at all to this part of the scheme. presumably putting it all onto the 100 to 200 hours a year of peak generating capacity, which would mean that a kilowatt of peak electricity from Dinorwic would cost more than six times as much as from


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any·where else. IT a pro·rata share of the cost is ascribed to the instant reserve operation then the costs turn out to be £4.4m more than existing plant · not £4.Sm cheaper. Nor, it also seemed. had the CEGB properly evaluated the alternatives, by which they meant gas turbines. They quoted a figure of £60 per kW installed whereas on the open market the cost is around £40 per kW, reducing the £4.Sm differential to zero. l\moreover the turbines can be installed much more quickly making it possible to cut planning time. Changes in electricity consumpt·ion over the seven years or more which Dinorwic will take to build could easily make it unnecessary. Nor are gas turbines the only systems competing with pumped storage. Among other options available are enlarging the cross channel cable, simplified steam plant, combinat·ion gas turbine/steam generators and pumped air storage while variations on the pumped water theme include the use of underground caverns. The CEGD mounted a massive public relations campaign to overcome local and national objections. Initially opposition came from both the North Wales (Hydro Electricity) Protection Committee, a charitable body comprised of various interests including the Youth Hostels Association and the Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales, and the County Council itself, which proposed an alternative scheme. The councils’ alternative concentrated on reducing the height of the Llyn Peris dams. While very disturbed by the damage to the ‘wilderness’ area of :Llarchlyn Mawr they had been unable to find a way of improving the top reservoir. The CEGB tactics included all the usual junkets, meals and meetings, a film in English and Welsh and one genuine concession, an agreement to spend £4!m on burying the power lines. After that at least one local Councillor was reported as saying that the council had been too hard on the CEGB in asking for more concessions. The Protection Committee alone opposed the scheme in principle, arguing that a generating plant should not be sited in a National Park and that the capacity required by the board could be provided by gas turbine or pumped storage. Their opposition was made difficult not only by ’lack of funds but by the general unwillingness of consultants to give evidence against the CEGB case:·‘Any·one who crosses the CEGB is treading on broken glass.’ The result was that the Parliamentary Committee of four (non·specialist) l\IP’s who heard evidence on It is just possible that the recent election results may affect a decision by the CEGB to go ahead with the scheme. Goronwy Roberts, Labour :\IP for Caernarvon,


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was defeated by the Nationalist Candidate and Nationalist support is important to the new Labour Government. the Bill came out in favour of the CEGB case.

GRASS CARS & GROWN HOMES OUR HEARTS \\'AR·t when we sec how earnestly people have taken up the call to use renewable·resource materials. Nature (25 Jan 1974) brings news from Pennsylvania of a chemical process for turning gritty bits of coral or starfish into artificial ial bones for spare·part surgery. ·o rejection problems. little danger of infection. and a lovely porous surface for living tissues t· attach themselves to. And no sooner have you used one starfish than somewhere,'here, no doubt. another is born to replace it. It's almost as good as Rudolf Docrnach's suggestion (New Scientist, 28 June 1973) that limestone·depositing marine organisms could, in a leisurely sort of fashion, build our houses for us on suitably shaped wire frames left hanging in the ocean. All the little chaps demand is light, oxygen, and the chemical nutrients they love to eat. June was a good. month. The British Ceramics Society held an international seminar on engineering ceramics, at which someone observed that plants such as grass deposit tiny particles of silica (little opals, actually) in their tissues. Palaeobotanists arc familiar with these 'phytoliths' as durable records of past vegetation, but the techno·logical potters see them as potential raw material. Thus common rice husks cooked up with suitable ingredients, could yield exotic ceramics such as silicon carbide and silicon nitride. Which might seem a waste of good rice husks but don't forget that strong, heat·resistant silicon nitride is going to be used to make motor car engines which will burn hotter which means more efficient which saves oil which is a good thing. United Stirling of Sweden want to put silicon nitride in their big Stirling engines. What better source than a vegetable one? BRAD A-BUILDINGHERE'S A status report on BRAD (Biotechnic Research and Development · see UNDERCURRENTS No.2, :'.tay 1972), the group formed in ::\.March 1972 by some people concerned about the current directions of technology and agriculture. "Our aim ,. they say "is to pro·vide an alternative, human in scale and ecological in emphasis, 10 conjunction with similar groups in other countries we seek to provide a new .... · technology for people who wish to live in harmony with their environment, in peace with their neighbours, and in control of their lives and their technology ... "Since April 1973 the commun·ity, thus far 8 adults and 3 kids, has been building a 750 cubic metre extension to a small stone cottage on a 43


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acre farm in Wales. A com·promise with the existing building and steep hillside, our new home nonetheless incorporates several interest·ing features, Three storeys high, it is built almost entirely in wood, for reasons of cost and ease of amateur construction. Insulation is by 3 inch polystyrene block in walls and roof voids; windows, home·built, are double glazed, and there is an airlock front door. Our 7 month winter heat·loss is reckoned at 55,000 kWh. Of this 15% should be made good by cooking, lighting and 16 active humans: about 35% by timber·burning stoves and fires (whose annual consump·tion of 7 tons is well within the output of our 10 acres of hazel coppice); the remainder by a heat pump. (yielding 12·14 kW output for an input of 3·4 kW of mains electricity, which cools a nearby tiny '''''L stream by 1 or 2 degrees centi·grade." "A 2·storey integral greenhouse in the SSW·facing rear wall will provide fan·blown warm air on sunny spring and autumn days, Hot water, estimated at 1. 000 litres daily, will come from our 55 square metre solar roof (boosted when necessary by timber stove and immersion heater): nearly complete, this is made of corrugated aluminium anodised dark grey, and skinned in 2mm plastic. To save power most Iighting is fluorescent. Mains electricity is also used to pump spring water to the house supply, though this is about to be super·seded by a double Savonius rotor windmill directly driving a screw pump. Cooking is on wood and propane stoves, the latter to he converted, hope·fully within the next year, to run on methane produced from animal manure (rather than watery wastes of our own which are dealt with by a septic tank, whose run·off feeds our I! acre kitchen garden from underground). " "Agriculture and husbandry for the farm have been over·shadowed this past year by the large building effort; yet early results are encouraging. We propose a very mixed, labour·intensive organic farm, with future experiments to include mole·training, fish and worm·farming. Currently we have hens, ducks, geese, cats, rabbits and a pregnant goat; sheep, cows, bees and a pig folIO'>'.' shortly, with horses possible later, Before pro·ceeding to the soft technology we have had to learn ordinary technologies: carpentry, joinery, plumbing, bricklay·ing, electricity; and much Alternative Technology is what most folk would regard as plain labouring." BRAD Eithin·y·Gaer Churchstoke Montgomeryshire, Wales

THE TECHNOLOGICAL AMERICAN PARTY THE YOUTH International Party Line (Yippies) has changed its name to the "Technological American Party" because it is "receiving so much information Lately about gas and electric meters, locks, and other topics that a name change was in order." It's main interest is still telephones, but it is starling to provide fact sheets on topics other than phones, and is also


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providing an Electronics Correspondence Course for Beginners. Subscriptions to its inform·ath'e bi·monthly :\cwsletter cost $2/Yt.'ar (·3. 50 first class mail) and can be obtained by writing to:· TAP, Room 504, 152 W ..t2 Stl'l'l't, New YOrk, N,Y .• IJ;);W

Acoustic EcologyTHE WORLD SOUNDSCAPE Project is studying man's relationship to his acoustic environment. Its immediate concern is the Canadian sound·scape · past. pr(>sent and future. Later its studies will be extended to include the sound of the world environ·ment, so that trends can be noted, differences compared and salient f(>aturc documented. ''Acoustics as a design study has been limited to closed environments: concert halls, sound·proof rooms and the like. It is time that acoustic d<,sign be applied to the envir·onment as a whole. To this end, the public must be stimulated to listen to and make critical judgments about the sounds to which it is exposed, or which it directly or indirectly produces. Too o(t('o people(' ignore (or think thPJ ignore) unpleasant and b{Jrin· sounds. This serves only to increase the problem of the proliferation of such sounds. Noise pollution is the direct ['result '11lC World Soundscape Project<.·'Ct takes a positive attitude to the situation: "\\'e regard the sounds of the en\'environment itS 3 great macro·cultural composition, of which man and nature arc the composer I performers, "they say. "To disguise an acoustic ambience with background music or masking noise, to block it out with ear muffs, cocoon·like sound·proof rooms or auto·mobiles is not, in our view, a satisfactory solution to the' problem of noise nor is it a creative approach to acoustic design. People must be stimulated to take a m:>re active part in their acoustic environment, and not passively accept the' well·(engineered . sound effects that are presently being intro·duced to the cars of an ever·increasing number of people ... The project combines the musician's aesthetic with many functional activities. which include aspects of architecture, psychology, acoustical engineering, urban geography, communications and many other disciplines. "'Much of our work has not yet been attempted on any systematic scale, and our efforts for the forseeable future will be to lay the ground·work for what is in effect a new field of studies which might be called Acoustic Design, or even Acoustic Ecology. Our aim is to provide coherent facts by which decisions can be made not only to control, but also to compose the acoustic environments of the future." The World Soundscape Project is preparing a series of documents dealing with its various research activities. The documents to date are The Book of Noise · a primer on noise pollution for the citizen; also suitable for . schools. Price 25c. Okeanos · a 90·minute quadro·phonic tape composition in which a "genealogy of images" of the sea attempts to bring a sense of ocean to the> listener. On rental from the composers. The Music of the


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Environment · an article originally written for the Unesco Journal of World History, on man's changing relationship to the sounds of the world environment. Price 50c. A Survey of Community Noise By·Laws in Canada · a compendium of noisE' legis·lation in all major Canadian cities, with commentaries, analysis and a guide to the citizen on legal action. Price. SOC. The project, under the direct·ion of composer·teacher R. Murray Schafer, is centred at the Sonic Research Studio, Simon Fraser University. It is funded by a grant from the Donner Canadian Foundation, with financial assistance from UNESCO. Working with Schafer on the project are Peter Huse. Bruce Davis. Kathleen ·'ink, Colin '·Hies. and Howard Broomfield.

RADIAL HOUSE This is the house which Herbert Girardet plans to start building in Radnorshire in the spring. The 12 v(>·sided design can be constr·ucted by 'ruler·and·compasses' geometry. The house might be 20ft high and 40ft across, but the dimensions can be varied at will. A small community of people would live in it, grow·ing vegetables and fruit in the' glassed·in section on the southern side. All around is a garden cultivated by intens·ive organic techniques. and beyond that, a field of grain. Result: good fresh f<XXI, no energy wasted on transport and processing, and genuine self ·sufficiency, At the core of the house is a fireplace and chimney. Around it on the(> ground (floor. the main living area. up·stairs. a bedroom or rooms. "toving out from the centre, we meet a ring of twelve pillars. perhaps old tele·graph poles. supporting thin curtain walls. Beyond that, on the south side, th(' gr('('n· house: on th(> north. rotll"d . the p(>rimcter of the house, are study. workshop. bath·room. entrance'. store. work room and kitchen('n. TWelve more> pillars SUPI the outer wall. Energy sources to b(' inst·alled in the house might include solar heat collectors' a rooftop windmill, and a waste digester generating methane gas for cooking. The Radial House is based on very elementary. geometrical laws and thus should inspire a feeling of harmony and security in those who in habit it, says Herbert in an article in Resurgence. So\' Dec 1973. Eventually there might he a community (sec below) of several houses close together with grain fields cultivated' collectively. At the moment says Herbert, that' bulk of th land is owned by a small. ('·'<exploitative(' minority. The redistribution of this land will become a key factor in the struggle for the' overall redistribution of wealth.


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Eddy Currents:MOUTON ROTHSCHILD The psycho·kinetic wonder worker, Yuri Geller has been bending more than spoon it seems. Among the avalanche of requests to the Editors of Old Scientist (a little known trade weekly) was a pathetic missive from a certain Lord Rothschild, head of Ted Heath's soi·disant 'Think Tank', begging to be allowed to do something important for once and sit on the panel which the magazine,as a means of boosting its flagging circulation, has cobbled together to "test" the "powers" of the paranormal prodigy. • BALLOONACY Max Rynish. the showman of the airship world, is at it again. His latest venture is a conference for engineers. transport operators and others. due to be held April 10 · 11, at which ;\1a.'<ie will explain his plans for using cheap lodi'lln labour to con·struct his aerial monsters .. On the subject of flying phalluses, w(> hear that Hugh Hefner [yes, He of Playboy fame] has b(>cn sniffing around the airship demi·monde flashing a proposal for n bunny·adorned 700 footer which will take him and Playmate·of·the·month on a trip to aerial bliss. Apparently \ I)' he feels that his current :wiatornl folly, an all black DC·9, offers insufficient scope(' for all his multi·facetted activities('s. • BLUE PRINT FOR SURVivAL THE RICHARD WILLSOn who provided an amusing little picture for the front cover of Aims of Industry's high·Tory, smash·the+miners pamphlet entitled ''Reds Under the Bed?" is surely unconnected with the Richard Willson who regularly draws cartoons for the well·known Cornish anti·capitalist monthly The Ecologist.

KOU WHO TEK? Comet Kohoutek must rank with the recent General Elec·tion as the fiasco of the century. ·tiss Comet Kahou·tek has come and gone leaving only a few forlorn T·shirts to remember her by, but the mere commercial crassness which inspired that little epi·sode pale to insignificance beside some of the ideas put forward to explain the signi·ficance of this cosmic non·event. We hear for instance from Synergy Access ·a 'global newsletter on futuristic communications, media and: networking "·o. 2 October '73) that the comet has inspired Dr. Timothy Leary to write another 'incredible' essay in prison, · to wit Starseed, the followup to his famed Neurologic. Life, according to the Good Doctor, "is an inter·stellar communications network. Life is dissemi·nated through the galaxies in nucleotide templates. These seeds land on planets, are activated by solar radiation and evolve nervous systems .. When mankind


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discovered the function and infinite capaci·ties of the nervous system a mutation took place. The person who makes this dis·covery becomes a time·traveller. A Psi·Phy entity .. The moment of spiritual reckoning approaches. Karmic prague sweeps the globe ... The comet star seed comes at the right time to return light to planet earth". Leary is now writing a sequel. 'Visionary futurist' Barbara Hubbard picks up the story in what later commentators may consider an attack of secondary Karmic plague. "Two evolu·tionary events of profound and inter·related importance are occurring on earth. 1) the rapid increase of synergistic action as the natural mode of change and, 2) the serious search for cosmic action/ consciousness/contact .... , life. As some people of the earth are attracted to speed up the! r interactions and release their unique potential by coming together in a new way · suprasex? · (sic).so the new transcenders point the way in real time to leave the bounds of this planet and become a new species."

So now you know ...…

Still on the Kohoutek theme, a 'Kohoutek celebration of consciousness' was held in San Francisco. This brought together 'leaders in the con·sciousness and parasychology fields' for a 'theater in·the·round multilogue' and included such events as "Sufi dancing, Kirlian photography, ESP teaching machines, meditation rooms, pulsars and black holes· tantric healing, yoga, hypnosis, sensory overload and deprivation rooms, bio·energetics machines that create music and lights to match movements and much more ... " ·Cosmo·biologists will be interested in our conscious·ness correspondent's report that those present suffered no apparent ill·effects from their close approach to these singu·larities in space·time.

RECYCLAMATES LIBERATION NEWS SERVICE reports that "When the U.S. government bans something from the market because it presents a health hazard, it doesn't just get thrown away. Often the government buys up the condemned material and finds a way. to dispose of it." According to "Workers ·Power", an American radical workers' paper, the U.S. is distributing a large quantity of soft drinks containing cyclamates to refugees in South Vietnam. Cyclamates in drinks were banned several years ago by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

.COUNTERSPY COUNTER·SPY is the bulletin of the Committee for Action/Research on the Intelligence Community (CARIC) and is a collective effort of the Committee. Each issue presents information and analysis on different aspects of the U.S. Intelligence effort. All information


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comes from available sources. Six dollars per year, \\write to:· CARIC. P.O. Box 647, Ben Franklin Station, Washington, D. C., 20044

• ROOM A. T. THE TOP ""his Aerocharger Mk II wind generator offers Top People the chance to go A. T. Over a five day period it will pro·vide 35 amp(hrs · "sufficient to run an auto·pilot or navi·gational lights for weekend cruising". Useful for ex·prime ministers with nautical tendencies .

THE BRITAIN CUBA SCIENTIFIC LIAISON COMMITTEE THE BRITAIN·CUBA Scientific Liaison Committee was formed back in April 1971 when a meeting of interested academics was held at Birk·beck college, London, with the intention of assisting Cuba in matters of science and technology. Similar groups already existed fll France, Germany and Scandinavia. Changing circumstances within Cuba had made liaison with Western European countries of growing importance. and it was felt that the British scientific community should respond to this in an organised way. The Committee sees its role as a double one; both to help the Cuban Revolution in a practical way. and to inform the scientific and technical community in Britain of the progress in those fields in Cuba. To this end. a small library of books, papers and periodicals, for the use of members of the committee, is being built up, and the Committee hopes to publish a yearly abstract in English of the scientific and technical achievements of the Cuban people. The Committee's general aims are: to give assistance in obtaining published or private material relating to science and technology, including literature on specific subjects. to give advice on the selection of material for academic courses or other research undertaken in Cuba, or assist·ance in the drafting of courses or in applied research. eto collaborate with counter·parts in Cuba on problem solving exercises or projects within the capabilities of any member or specialist section of the group. eto select suitable contracts for visits of Cuban academics, technologists, polytechnics, research establishments or private industry for further training, information, etc. on behalf of Cuba. and, to provide lecture courses, seminars, summer schools and longer term academic tuition by professionally competent members.

Since its formation, the Committee has been active In all the areas set out in the General Aims. Nearly all its specialist groups have supplied text books, some as many as fifty, to the various University departments and research institutes. Many journals have also been supplied. Technical literature and advice have been given on the use of flocculants in nickel refining: benefication and separation problems in polymetallic ores;


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direct reduction technology; and certain aspects of petro·chemical technology. Earlier this year the Cuban Government appointed a First Secretary to the Embassy in London who would have part·icular responsibility for the Committee, and at the same time requested that the Committee considerably expand its activities. Up till that time the groups that made up the Committee reflected more the interests of the academic community here than the scientific and technical priorities of the Cuban Govern·ment. New groups have since been formed in Agriculture and the Veterinary Sciences, and it is hoped that a group can be formed in mining and metallurgy. If you are interested in helping the Committee's work please contact the Secretary, Rooney Mace, 10 Brief Street, London, SE5 9RD, (Tel. 2744617).

MAN, HIS ENERGIES AND THE COSMOS A WORLD CONFERENCE under this title will run at Westfield College, London, from 31 March to 6 April. Its aim is to bring together physicists, bio·chemlsts, doctors, practitioners of alternative medicine, psychics of all kinds and churchmen, who are interested in an integrated approach to the central phenomenon of man · in place of the current plethora of fragmented and usually Inter·alienated approaches. The speakers themselves reflect this full cross·section. Some of the good things involved are the control of pain and stress other than by drugs; and the effects of mind on organic and inorganic matter. Solid experimental evidence Is claimed by some researchers for the induction of changes in crystal structures by the action of thought processes; and similarly for the gener·ation of new qualities in plants. The intended participants include researchers who have hesitated to speak publicly about their latest findings and beliefs, from fear of loss of reputation and ridicule by their professional colleagues. In the afternoon seminars in particular, speakers will feel free to air their views and findings without the danger of nasty reporting, perhaps even unintentional misreporting, by the press. The morning sessions will be informal, with a view to encouraging a relaxed, open·minded atmos·phere. Evenings comprise actual demonstrations and films The complete proceedings of the conference will be published, probably both In printed and tape form. The longer·term aim of the con·ference organisers is the creation of a Centre or Foundation (scheduled for 1974) devoted exclusively to research and teaching on the lines of the conference. It is believed that not a few noted researchers in a wide variety of disciplines would be willing to abandon their current conventional research if they could earn a living in the kinds of research they would like to carry out. Health for the N (!IN Age Trust, la, Addison Crescent, London, W14


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09 LettersCoock·up Dear friends, By Jove: We cannot forget it: can you please send us one (or more) examplary of this "special energy" Undercurrents issue in which we can find, people says, the coocking formula for atomic bombs? We propose you to exchange our periodicals, if this solution agree you in a first time. We hope too that it should just be a beginning of a fruitful common work. JP Laurens EnergEco BP83 75923 PARIS Cedex ] 9

Choice &control Dear UNDERCURRENTS Generally. I have found the mixture of frontier spirit, homespun philosophy. eastern mysticism. plastic flower power and social elitism evidenced by most alternative, (mainly American), magazines difficult to take seriously. I have. therefore, been especially impressed by the straight (sorry) forward attitude of most Undercurrents contributors. Thus, Peter Harper's article was not unexpected, if a little worrying. I am a teacher and over the years have become increasingly dissatisfied with "soup kitchen" education: it's a buyer's market in disillusioned white liberals. I wondered by what right I forced young people, able and willing to make their own choices, to be in the same building as me. I decided that I had no right. Thus, I began to realize that schools themselves were. by their very nature. unable to produce autonomous individuals and must merely reinforce social differences. (It was only later that IlIich, Reimer, Goodman et al became cliches to me). I realized that if Western man was not merely going to sink back into the Dark Ages. his daily life must in itself be educationally stimulating and enriching. I turned to alternative technology, which appeared to contain such possibilities of enrichment. I realised that if school was to become redundant, the general environment Itself must be "educational". and that the major criteria to be applied were the twin concepts of choice and control: a man able to make choices and control his environment Is an educated man. But the environmental situation has assumed crisis proportions much faster than thad envisaged. Technological changes will, perhaps, have to be made · in the short term at least · irrespective of any educational considerations. Nevertheless, I feel that such considerations should be kept to the forefront. Thus, certain services which facilitate rather than dominate can remain at least partially centralised without undue strain on the general philosophy,


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(e.g. water, sewerage, public transport, and even IlIich's beloved telephone system). Certainly, plans for recycling, reduced demand and so on must be encouraged, and rural communities could increasingly be self sufficient, but the two systems could co·exist without producing a biotechnic rural elite. Relatively centralised educational and political systems should give maximum choice and control to the individual. The production of good.s, energy etc. would come somewhere in the middle of the scale. DR Ball 49 Bocking Church Street Braintree Essex

Meaningful? Dear UNDERCURRENTS You asked for Feedback. Peter Harper's article: 1 found it very interesting but far too "in·group" centred. \\'hat is happening now is happening now, fashionable or not, middle·class or not, and it's a product of the historical development of humankind, and we can either be part of it constructively or destructively. ·early everyone wants to be "constructive", the problem is · who's to say what is constructive · to what external, objective standards and measurements can we apply to reassure ourselves? I think the answer is · there aren't any. External and objective, that is. That concept is wrapped up with our conditioned 'scientism' view that gives us other concepts such as the possibilities of unlimited growth. objective knowledge in the hands of experts to whom we must defer, specialisation · you know, the whole counter·culture thing. Whether or not this is right doesn't really matter, because it's theorising only \\hllL ·I.,·., matter is that people· .Ht' • ',II tinuing to analyse, [urmullll., possibilities, and then try Llicu, out. My opinion is tbat more and more areas of activity (centres of energy) are being set up · Undercurrents itself is one of them · and that these centres. although super·ficially concerned with totally different goals' and programmes, are underneath at one in being concerned with an almost evolutionary / revolutionary development in humankind Meaningful is a word I like. Is what each of us is doing, meaningful? This is something we can begin to answer ourselves, and with practice get better at it, as we sharpen our self·honesty. Don't let the Man get you down. Alan Emmerson The Studios 42·46 Victoria Drive London. S'A'19 BOTTLED GAS Dear UNDERCURRENTS In a recent article in Eddies concerning Newera Farm, you asked for information regarding a method of bottling methane without a compressor. For my own purposes I devised the setup detailed below. Undercurrents/Eddies is excellent. Keep up the good. work. Robert Atkinson Slaithwaite Hall Experimental Projects 9 Slaithwaite Hall Slaithwaite Huddersfield Yorkshire. HD7 5XA


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10-12 Wood Do we need an Alternative Electronics Industry?

AFTER READING Peter Harper's epitaph to Alternative Technology in Undercurrents, I thought I'd better pay my last respects before rigor mortis (or resurrection) sets in. The device shown in Fig 1 was a good example of Alternative Technology, It comprised the power supply for a one-transistor radio designed by George Seegers and Victor Papanek 1 for remote districts in India. It had the distinctive style of good old AT; a home· brewed miracle of scrap materials bringing power (or information) to the people. In this case, an old tin can and some bits of wire were woven into a thermo-couple. Any available fuel (dried cow dung etc) was burned inside the tin to heat the junctions just inside, thus producing a voltage. Any dissimilar metals welded or twisted together in an A:B:A sandwich should produce a voltage when one A: B junction is hotter then the other. (Most of our beer cans are now thoughtfully made with a steel body and an aluminium top ... ). The idea is nice and simple, but in practice it may be difficult to get working effective·Iy. The voltage operated is something in the order of tens of microvolts/degree C, depending on the metals used. My own best model used a candle-heated junction of nickel-chrome wire twisted around some copper wire. For voltages high enough to run a transistor (one volt?) one would need to put many junctions in series, but this would not guarantee a high current supply. The radio designed by Seegers and Papanek to work off the thermoelectric generator uses a tunnel diode, 'hearing-aid' earpiece and tots of copper wire, so some reasonably sophisticated manufacturing techniques are required. Perhaps the worst aspect of the design is the suggested use (at less than 1 % efficiency) of cow dung as combustible material when its agricultural potential is so undervalued in India. A rather similar, but 'consumerised' version of the thermo-generator was manufactured in Russia some years ago (see Fig 2) and designed specifically to power valve radios in isolated rural areas. This device has more sophisticated cooling fins to maintain the temperature gradient, and sits


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on the glass cover of an oil lamp. Its mass-produced intricacies probably lift it out of the realm of Alternative Technology, but anyway it is reckoned to produce a couple of watt! total power from its two outputs (100 volts at 10 milliamps and 2 volts at half an amp). A lecturer at London University recently said of these units' I can think of few practical uses to which these can be put ... .' A battery which gets its energy from food scraps is shown in Fig 3. Rice husks, bread crumbs etc are placed inside the cylinder so that they touch the disc electrodes at either end. As the bacteria work to decompose the organic matter, a voltage (V, volt in my experiment) is produced across the electrodes. The notion of a simple, ad hoc design for utilising kitchen wastes is in the best traditions of AT. But in the case of devices which use rare materials like copper, it is desirable to examine the whole balance of efficiency·versus availability. so that the long-term impact is kept to a minimum. Home-built aerogenerators, for example, can offer a valuable source of electrical energy-especially when one's own labour is '(free'-and the materials would o;otherwise be abandoned on rubbish dumps. Nevertheless, windmills on an AT scale have a low energy output in relation to the capital investment required and every conventional method relies heavily on copper for its generator windings. (·Thinks. _ . If copper was really plentiful, then you could wind giant coils in the shape of catenary sails. You could then have sky·high generators, rotating in the earth's magnetic field!'). But the shortage of copper is a strategic factor in any proposed sharing·out of technical resources. (Think of the quantities need·ed for community TV transmitted by cable!). Most alternatives to copper are either less efficient conductors or are even rarer an d more inaccessible. Aluminium, though was plentiful and as good a conductor as copper, at present requires immense amounts of energy to extract it from Bauxite. (There have, however, been recent proposals for less energy-intensive methods of extracting aluminium.) Figure 5 shows an idea for a 'solid-state' aerogenerator which uses no metals at all. Although requiring high-temperature mass-production techniques, it should last a long time and uses two of the most abundant materials on earth (silicon and carbon) for its electrical operation. Most windmills utilise a small 'disc' of windpower (ie the area of sky swept by its blades). To justify the complexities of gearing, feathering mechanism, wind following devices. and so on, the main unit is mounted high on a


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tower so that it can receive a steady flow of fast-moving air. The concept underlying my system is based on the movement of grasses in turbulent or erratic winds. My suggestion is that numerous aerofoil 'fingers' or 'flags' could be mounted on an indefinite area of piezo·electric substrate and would simply wave or vibrate when the wind blew on them. Such a device could be made and sold, like carpeting, by the square metre. It could be stuck to the sides of buildings, floors, roofs, passages and locations where turbulence is a 'problem'. The chief snag with this 'de-centralised' concept is that there are energy losses between the aerofoils and the energy storage point. In my design, any movements in the aerofoils cause the piezo-electric crystals to be distorted along their electrical axes. The cheapest microphones (from 1Sp) and the most expensive cigarette lighters use such crystals to translate movement into electricity. These lighter; generate quite high voltages in order to create a spark, so only fairly small currents are necessary to release a relatively large amount of power. So it is not crucial that the electrical paths should be of very low resistance. (Volt·age lost = current flowing x resistance of the route). Obviously, when the wind blows and the aerofoils flutter, the voltages could all be of different magnitude, frequency, phase~ and polarity; for this reason, high voltage diodes are included to act as one-way valves to the flow of current. In this way, a direct current (DC) output is achieved. The crystals should respond to a wide range of frequencies including sound waves, so that loud noises would (theoretically) be transformed into electricity. Just a thought. 1 believe that AT enthusiasts should reconsider-under the right conditionsthe use of mass-production techniques involving a high-energy investment. Figure 6 is a chart carefully compiled to show how inefficient the best AT can be, and by contrast, how useful those nasty high technologies could bein a perfect world. Admittedly, lighting is not a primary user of power but it makes a good example of the case for controlled and socially responsible high·tech. Basically, all lighting systems produce heat and other unwanted (well, in hot weather anyway), grades of energy_ Quite simply, some devices give more light than others, for a given energy budget. Perhaps the most impressive lamp is the Gallium Phosphide light· emitting diode which emits a narrow spectrum of (green)


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light, corresponding very closely to the peak sensitivity of the human retina. This kind of sophistication is only possible with relatively centralised resources of research and development. Electronics used to require a wide range of materials such as carbon, ceramics, copper, glass and tungsten. The earliest valve radios and computers were therefore inefficient, unreliable and needed large doses of energy to run them. But you can now buy a silicon integrated circuit the size of an aspirin which contains an almost complete radio needing one milliwatt (one thousandth of a watt) to operate it. The cost prize is only a few pence per circuit. Television-in theory at leasthas by far the highest information/energy ratio of anything found in the average home; it is 400 times better in this respect than the telephone. New developments in electronics and liquid crystals etc are likely to give even more dramatic improvements in efficiencyimprovements which will not make any significant extra demands on scarce material resources. Integrated circuits use the same amount of silicon for a given surface area, irrespective of the circuits complexity. Large-scale integration of components make it possible to fit over 1000 components onto a slice of silicon 3mm square. Current retail prices are surprisingly low, and you can get a single (series 74) integrated circuit containing six binary (computer) gates for 18 pence. The computer industry has been s:::>w to develop low-power circuits, being more interested in high-speed devices: the trade-off between speed and low power consumption has been at the expense c low-power consumption. However the 74L series of IC is now available. This device, though it operates at one third of the speed (still extremely fast) of the standard 74 type, uses only a tenth of the power to do the same job. A more advanced series of les (type 4000) should be in the shops by August at prices comparable to the 74 series. These newer circuits need only 1.3 volts and 0.1 microwatts of power (one tenth of a millionth of a watt) per logic 'gate'. When the are idling (ie switched on but,. not computing) they use only 0.01 microwatts/gate; this means that 100,000 gates would idle at 1 milliwatt' One could envisage a fairly sophisticated computer running off the lemon batter illustrated in Fig 8! Silicon solar cells are very similar in technology to the integrated circuits. Their present high costs are due largely) to the absence of any sizeable


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'market' for them. (I was recently quoted a price equivalent to £150,OOO/kilowatt!). Pet Glaser has calculated that continue production of the cells; in strip-form could bring the price down to a highly competitive £2S0/kilowatt. If AT is to return to the land of the living, as suggested by Peter Harper then it will have either to accept the arbitrary and questionable nature of large industry, or alternatively to start its own, fairly-centralised, cooperative( industries. For electronics, arguably, i~ one of the few potentially useful high· technology industries capable of enhancing the efficiency of 'orthodox AT. For instance, a standardised large· scale integrated circuit could be developed for controlling the conditions of growth in a greenhouse. (Sec my 'Suburban Sunsharing' article on p31 of Undercurrents No 5). Similar circuit could be developed for maximising tho output of aero-generators, solar storage devices and almost all electrical dome~ appliances. Figure 7 shows a proposed circuit for conserving the energy supp to a water pump in a solar collector. 2 is a temperature-sensitive device which is mounted on the solar panel. 3 is an identical device mounted in the water storage tank. When 2 becomes hotter than 3, the circuit increases the speed of the pump motor. I hope to develop the system in conjunction with! the people at BRAD in the near future John Wood 899 Kingsway Manchester M20 OPB 1 cf. 'Design for the Real World' by V Papanek; Thames & Hudson)


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13-17 Stellon The Heat That Comes In From The ColdQuestion: WHAT HAVE the designers of German U boats, high speed Japanese trains, and the BRAD community of Wales in common? Answer: They use Heat Pumps. But I doubt whether Lord Kelvin foresaw that the heat pump would be used in a weapon of war or in a high speed transport system when he first suggested it back in 1852. His paper ·The Power Required for the Thermodynamic Heating of Buildings2 is the original source for the idea that a reversed heat engine cycle might be used to keep a building warm. But the concept was not developed during his lifetime. Only in the last thirty years has research been carried out in any detail. The heat pump·s erratic career really began in this country just after the war. In 1947 John A Sumner, the manager of the Norfolk Sub·Area of the Eastern Electricity Board installed a heat pump to provide space heating for the Board·s offices in Norwich. The publicity given to this project resulted in the Electrical Research Association being funded officially to research heat pumps (Amus·ingly enough, the original equipment used to construct the ERA·s first test models was made from old U·boat parts.) A period of intense activity followed. The ERA produced a number of pro·posals for heating different types of building·including large offices and workshops. Most of this work was carried out in the 1950·s and the reports that cover these projects are available from the ERA library. Many research papers were also produced. By far the largest attempt at heating a building in this way was the prestig·ious Royal Festival Hall project of 1953. Its designers, P Montagnon and A Ruckley. had hoped to harness the large quantities of low grade heat available in the River Thames. As a concept it had every reason to succeed, but after instal·lation the heat pump system was shut down and replaced by modified gas boilers. This was not the fault of the heat pump. which was working quite well, but was due to an error in the original calculations. The heat loss by the building was grossly overestimated, so the pump ended up supplying too much heat. Normally this would have been remedied by turning the pump off at intervals. But the particular techno·logy involved in the compressor design chosen meant the system had to be kept running all the time. The resulting adverse publicity speed·ed an inevitable decline in the popularity of the heat pump; inevitable because of the vast quantities of cheap fuel import·ed into the UK during the 1960·s. No· one wanted to pay an initial high cost for a heating system that only saved fuel. Energy was a cheap commodity in those days.


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The net result was that those firms marketing heat pumps in the mid 60·s either went bankrupt or, like Lucas Aerospace Industries, switched produc·tion to other commodities. The advent of off·peak, low tariff electric storage heaters finally killed the market. Even the ERA found it difficult to find support for further research·which was unfortunate because it meant that the country·s most expert team had to be broken up. The picture today however is very different. Energy conservation is upper·most in everyone·s minds, not least among government planners, so much so that the Electricity Council has com·missioned its Research Centre to investi·gate the heat pumps· capabilities. At the moment this work consists of testing several installed pumps (off·the·peg units bought from large manufacturers like Westinghouse), together with some research on larger applications. It·s quite likely that this activity will grow as energy becomes more and more expensive. The other work going on in this country at the moment is being done by enthusiasts and private companies. The former are somewhat disorganised, and the latter seem to rely on importing models manufactured by parent compan·ies in the States. By now you must be wondering exactly what a heat pump is, if you don·t already know. Its principle is the same as that of a refrigerator. Your fridge works by pump· ing the heat out of the air inside the cool·ing compartment. If you put your hand over the pipes at the back of your fridge you can feel the expelled heat. Now a heat pump does the same thing except it pumps low temperature heat from the air outside your home, and by a thermo·dynamic trick this heat is transformed into high·temperature heat for inside your home. How is this accomplished? Well, you can use one of two systems. The Vapour Compression System: This system consists basically of five parts: the evaporator, condenser, compressor, refrigerant and expansion valve (see Diagram 1). Any heat pump is compris·ed of two heat exchangers (ie the evaporator and the condenser) one at a higher temperature (T1) and the other at a lower temperature (T 2) connected by a machine (the compressor) for maintain·ing them at T1 and T2 respectively. This process results in heat being trans·ferred across the system·that is, from evaporator to condenser. The method used for producing the necessary )high and low levels of temperature is the controlled expansion and compression of a suitable volatile liquid, known as the refrigerant. For a given refrigerant the tempera·ture at which evaporation3 or condensa·tion4 takes place depends on the pressure it·s kept at and can be varied by chang·ing the pressure. Now when the refriger·ant passes through the evaporator it does so under low pressure which means that it


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boils5 at a low temperature. This is of necessity lower than that of the adjacent medium (the heat source) because conversion from liquid to vapour involves the absorption by the refrigerant of a considerable quantity of heat (the latent heat of vaporisation) from the source. The compressor functions by remov·ing the refrigerant vapour as fast as it is forme·d, so maintaining the required pressure in the evaporator. At the same time it raises· the pressure of the refrigerant and hence the temperature at which it will condense. These pressures often reach 180 pounds per sq inch. Hot vapour, after leaving the compressor, meets the slightly cooler surface of the condenser and is thereby liquified, giving off the energy it gained in the evaporator as heat (the latent heat of condensation). After the refrigerant has passed through ·the condenser, which results in a hot liquid of high pressure, it has to change state so that it is ready to go through the evaporator again. That means lowering the pressure and hence the temperature at which it will change from liquid to vapour. This is normally done by an expansion valve·which can be as simple as a capillary tube. And so the refrigerant enters the evaporator, thus commencing the cycle again. It·s a fair COP It·s useful to know how efficient a heat pump is, if only as a measure of the energy it uses. The yardstick commonly used is called the Coefficient of Performance, COP for short. The COP is the ratio of the heat transferred across the system (Q) to the energy used by the system to perform the transfer (W) ie COP = Q/W. Another way of expressing this is using the temperatures Ti and T2 mentioned earlier. That is _ .. COP = Q/W = T1/(T1 · T2) EQUATION 1

where T1 and T2 are the upper and lower temperatures of the system in degrees Kelvin (Degrees Kelvin = degrees Centi·grade + 273). For example if your pump distributed heat at 500 C (T1 = 3230 K) and collected it at 100 C (T 2 = 2830 K), the COP would be 323= 8:1. For an ideal machine, that is. But there is no such thing as an ideal machine, and the effective COP is always less. From equation 1 we can say that for a maxi·mum COP the difference between the two operating temperatures must be as small as possible (or the lower temper·ature must be as high as possible). The range of COP for known heat pump installations is 2:1 to 7.8:16, although more commonly reported values are 2·5:1 to 3·5:1 for small machines. The Absorption 5·· System The absorption system works along the same lines as that of the vapour com·pression cycle but with one difference·the means adopted for conveying the vapour produced to the condenser eliminates the need for a compressor. In a simple absorption system (see Diagram 2) vapour


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enters the absorb·er from the evaporator and is dissolved with the absorbent which is usually Ammonia in water. The resultant mixture is then passed to a generator where it is heated by an external source of heat. The refrigerant boils off and passes on to the condenser, while the weakened solution returns via a pressure reducing valve to the absorber. From condenser back to evaporator the two systems are the same. The COP for this type of absorption cycle is COP = 1 + l/H where I is the latent heat of vaporisation and H is the heat of reaction involved in the separation of the refrigerant from the absorbent in the generator. The ratio I/H is always near unity. So the efficiency of this type is at best COP = 2: 1. Actual machines fall short of this ideal and realistic values mentioned . in the literature are about 1·4:1. ln other words the net result is higher running costs hence the limited use to which they have been put. The evaporator usually consists of piping which can be 3/8" up 10 1" 0/0, coiled in some form with the coils running through a series of fins. Copper is used for the fins in towns because it is more resistant to chemical attack. BUl out of town, aluminium is used since it is cheaper. An alternative to this is to contain the refrigerant in a casing and pass the heat source (in this example it would have to be a liquid or vapour) through pipes immersed in the refrigerator. Nuffield College, Oxford used a variation on this arrangement which is shown in diagram 3. I n any case the junction remains the same·the extraction of heat through evaporation. The design of the condenser is similar to that of the evaporator. There are several qualities to look Ol for when choosing a suitable refrigerant The most common substances are Freon (R 12), Areton and Isceon. These are trade names used by manufacturers. British Oxygen make Freon (otherwise known in its different types as R1 R22 etc) and ICI, Arcton. I·m afraid it’s not possible to make this at home so if you want some,contact British Oxygen. They sell the stuff in cylinders or drums, a cylinder or drums, a cylinder of refriger·ant load 12 kg costs about £13. As loads increase prices vary between the different types of refrigerant. It is essential that it should be non·toxic, especially if used in an air·conditioning system. This is why ammonia, once used widely, is no longer popular. However in sealed heating systems,ie hot water radiators,1 see no reason why ammonia should not be used as refrigerant for the heat pump.


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For maintenance·free running the refrigerant should be iron·corrosive. Methyl Chloride has been used (its cheaper than Freon) but when mixed with water it becomes highly corrosive. If plastic pipework is used in the system R 12 is preferable to R22 since its combination with refriger·ants is less severe. There are also a couple of technical qualities to be aware of·any refrigeration text book from your local library will explain them. I·m afraid it·s not possible to make your own refriger·ant at home. If you want some, contact British Oxygen . Perhaps the major development in heat pump technology since the ·50·s· at least as far as people selling them is concerned·has been the advent of hermetically sealed units. Before these, compressors·of which there are three principal types: reciprocating; rotary; and centrifugal·required oil lubrication. In hermetically sealed units all the moving parts are in a Freon atmosphere which is self·lubricating. Still, it·s possible for most domestic applications where the user makes his own heat pump, that the compressor will not be hermetically sealed. In such cases the refrigerant mixes With the lubricant and after compression has to be separated through a rectifier. The reason that the heat pump is such an attractive idea is because of the energy savings made by lapping a free heat source, the most common of which are the air, water and earth. They each contain large amounts of stored solar energy in the form of otherwise unus·able low·grade heat. The heat pump merely makes this heat usable. AIR is the most often·quoted heat source. A global commodity, it seems unlikely to run out (and if it does, well . . . ). Air is also available in any part of the world·which cannot be said for water. So you don·t have to live next to a river to use a heat pump. Most of the firms that market pumps use an air source. The practical reasons for this are that the units can be made very compact. Obviously, the smaller and fewer the parts the less expensive it will be. There are a number of problems, though. Air isn·t a particularly dense material. So for every cubic foot that is passed over the evaporator (usually by an electric fan) very little heat is extracted. This means that large volumes of air have to be shifted for the system to work. Now this country has a high mean level of humidity (water vapour in.the air), which means that at air temperatures below 320F, common in winter, the vapour freezes on the evapor·ator. And although frost accumulation of up to 2 or 3 Ibs per sq ft of coil surface has not been found seriously t to impair the transfer rate between the refrigerant surface and the air, beyond this point the surfaces must be period·ically defrosted. You can do this by simply reversing the refrigerant cycle, thereby changing the function of the evaporator to that of the condenser and vice versa. In this


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country you should do this for about five minutes every hour. However the process does lower the efficiency of the unit and this has been one of the major drawbacks to the use of air as a heat source. Of course in countries where the humidity is low there is no problem. Some research has been done on designing a system of evaporating coils that could be run indefinitely even though it were laden with frost. This work was carried out in the early 1960·s with some measure of success but little has been heard of it since then. The report that covers this is in the ER· library. the author being WJ Johnson. Naturally·occurring ·Water as a source imposes the obvious limitation that the building to be heated needs to be located near a river, lake or sea. The alternative is digging a well, which can be an expensive business. So if you live near the seaside or one of the many rivers in this country you can start smiling. Besides the Royal Festival Hall, a number of other schemes have successfully used water as a source· including the pioneering scheme of Summers in 1947. Ships especially, because of their contact with the sea, have been heated in this way. Like air, water as a heat source needs to be kept continually moving: not because it consumes large volumes, as the air system does, but because it could just totally freeze up. A case in point was Reading University. The ERA were approached by the University to examine the use of its lake as a source to heat the whole university complex. But the ERA calculated that to do this the entire lake would even·tually freeze up! A rather more permanent source for the heat pump has been the ground. As far back as 1952, a laboratory at Shinfield was heated from the soil. It was shown on this project that for every foot length of pipe 10 watts of heat can be gleaned. In other words you would need 100 ft of pipe to pro·duce 1 KW (the heat equivalent of 1 bar on your electric fire). Obviously if you had a garden that is shorter than 100 ft you would have to space the pipes in rows, usually at 18" to 2· centres (this would cover an area 10· by 20· for 1 KW) about 3· to 4· under the ground. This is the minimum depth that one should drive for to avoid any plant but watch out for tree roots. The average garden can, however, supply the total heating need of a typical suburban ·semi·. These pipes (W· or %" diameter) laid in the ground would contain a brine solution which would be


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pumped to the evaporator and circulated around its coils. This secondary system of brine rather than refrigerant is necessary because, should a leak occur below ground. it would be a very expensive business to replace the lost refrigerant every time·let alone digging up your garden to try to trace the leak. It is important for the successful operation of a ground system to have moisture movement in the soil. Appar·ently moisture acts as the medium by which heat is stored in the ground. So if installed at the top of a chalk hill or in a sandy region, the efficiency of the system would be low. Fortunately, most soils in this country are quite moist, Although in the case of clay soils, which are common around London, there is a similar problem in stopping the soil from drying up. It has been suggested thaI Bentenite be added to the soil in such cases. Most good gardening shops will stock it. Any pipework placed beneath the ground can suffer through subsidence. Normal practice is to surround the pipe with a jacket of sand, which then falls to fill any gaps "",created by subsidence. A mixture of soil and sand is advisable to maintain the necessary moisture movement. Various artificial heat sources have been suggested·and used. Successive schemes at Stourport and Meaford have used low·grade waste heat from generating stations. As mentioned earlier Nuffield College at Oxford installed a heat pump in the late 1950·s which used the .city sewage as its main heat source. (Surprisingly enough the average temp of the shit was 650F!). Other suggestions have included using domestic tap water. Mr E Curtiss· home in Watford has a heat pump with just such a source, However, I wouldn·t recommend tap water on the grounds that its use places an unfair burden on our already strained water reserves. Much more preferable and almost as easy to use is the waste water from your sink. Another idea is to use the hot air extrac·ted from Underground railway ventila·tion shafts. There·s no end to the games you can play thinking up new sources. Equally diverse are the types and efficiencies of fuel used for powering the pump. The most comm·on ·fuel· for working the compressor is electricity. But the efficiency of converting the prime fuel (coal) to electricity is low,


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and if one takes this factor into account (which is rarely done) the overall per·formance of the cycle is reduced. On certain installations one need not necessarily use a fossil fuel. There are a number of AT techniques that can be used. Mr F Sutcliffe has a heat pump in his house at Bath. At the moment it is powered in the conventional way. However his intention is to use a high speed water turbine powered by the nearby river. It may have occurred to you by now that a windmill is highly amenable for this purpose, And may well be the only answer if you are in an isolated part of the world, with no river in sight. (Expeditions to the arctic are a case in point. So are communes in Wales for that matter). Linking this system up to a solar col lector has potential for supplying hot water the whole year round. The problem with solar collectors alone has been in the past that in winter, when most heat is needed for hot water, the collector is supplying only warm water. In the diagram below, Tan B and its circuit would operate in such conditions. The heat pump powered by a windmill would then be brought into operation and so heat Tank A to the necessary hot water level. Obviously in summer the collector would not need the help of the heat pump and so lank A and its circuit would operate on its own. The question of how heat is dissipated from the condenser to the dwelling is as large a subject as that of heat pumps. Suffice 10 say here that there are three major approaches to such a problem. These a[c:warming air which is then forc·ed throughout the building (air·condition·ing); heating water which then transfers its heat from convector radiators to rooms by convection currents and radia·tion;and thirdly, warming large masses by water which then radiate heat through·out the dwelling, ie pipes laid under or in the floor slab. More will be said of air·conditioning in a moment. As regards the circulation of water under slabs or in ceilings, the concept is fine. The use of lower tem·perature water pumped through large: masses does mean usually that plant r,,J,s to be installed during construction 11; the dwelling. Therefore existing homes would require considerable alteration to make sure of such a system. Perhaps the most suitable option for homes already built b the radiator system where the hot water supply is heated by a heat pump. It does mean that the most meandering buildings are easily accommodated.


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In the case of air·conditioning it is possible to buy a heat pump ·off the peg· specifically designed for this pur·pose. A number of the large air con·ditioning and refrigeration companies have available or are about to bring out heat pump units. These of necessity are all air source systems. Obviously all other heat sources have specific require·ments concerning their own sites and as such are unsuitable for the type of mass production that big firms go in for. With the exception of Temperature Ltd (who use a heat pumps in a heat reclaim system) companies marketing air source heat pumps in this country are wholly or partly backed by American money. Among the larger US conglom·erates selling us heat pumps are Westing·house, Lennox and Carrier (who act through a subsidiary called Carlyle). Each has a range and the price can vary from (400 for units that could just heat a small house to (1000 for units capable of larger installations (like 2 houses!). Diagram 6 shows a unit that Lennox market (their HP7 series). This only cost> £310 folks! But it doesn·t have an indoor coil so you could have to get your own or buy another separate unit from them. If you do intend to buy one, make sure you·ve got somewhere to put it (on the roof, in the roof etc) because the larger units arc quite big .. around 3· x 4· x 5·. I also ought to mention that since air·conditioning companies make the devices its assumed that air is the med·ium by which the sensible heat is trans·ferred to the dwelling. In other words, air ducts have to be fitted, and that also costs money. Any intelligent human being, with a lot of hard work can make a heat pump if he or she so wishes. There isn·t a great deal of material published specifically dealing with do·it·yourself heat pumps. Standard refrigeration text books however are quite good·although they are more concerned with generating cold than heat. I think it is important to state that heat pumps don·t fall immediately into the low technology category. Inter·mediate technology would be more appropriate. Calculations, tools and technological equipment are necessary for the efficient functioning of a good system. Yet the heat pump does offer one big advantage·the ability to tap heat sources that have for centuries been out of reach. The beauty of the heat pump is that it makes use of a natural cycle and, used properly, produces little or no pollution. What more could we


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ask for? by Pete Stellon

1 The new TOKAI DO trunk line. 2 As Professor William Thompson·Glasgow Philosophical Society Proceedings, Vol II! Dec 1852. 3 The conversion of a substance from liquid 10 vapour form. 4 The conversion of a substance from vapour to liquid form 5 Boiling is just very rapid evaporation 6 Diamant, RM and McGarry, J. Space & District Heating IIiffe 1968.

*The term refrigerant is derived from its obvious application in refrigerating ADDRESSES Electrical Research Association: Cleeve Road, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 7SA. (For further information) Tel: 5374151 Electricity Council Research Centre: Capenhurst, Chester, CH 1 6ES (For further information) Tel: 0513394181 Lennox Industries Limited Lister Road Basingstoke, Hants. (PO Box 43) (For off the peg units) Tel: 025625241 British Oxygen Group Head Office Hammersmith House, London W6: (For refrigerant) Tel: 01·7482020 National Merchandise 1387 London Road Norbury Streatham Hill Common (For spare parts·compressors and coils) Tel: 01·6790901 Ask for Derek; 1 Shrewsbury Road Carshalton, Surrey. (For spare parts·compressors and coils) Tel: 01·6486058 EP Plastics Ltd 152 Newport St, Lambeth, London SEll (For spare parts·plastic tubing for ground coils)


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Also look in Exchange and Mart and Yellow pages for further stockists of refrigerator parts and your local library for refrigeration text books. BIBLIOGRAPHY Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning. AD Althouse McGraw·Hill,1968. Heat Pumps and Electric Heating ER Ambrose London, Wiley, 1966 Questions and Answers: Refrigeration ME Anderson, revised by RH Herbert London, Newnes·Butterworth, 1971. Small Heat Pumps M Komedera ·Steam & Heating [Engineering Od 1964 ERA·several papers on Heat Pumps ERA Library, 1950·s_ Recent Applications of the Heat Pump MV Griffith ·Symposium on Electricity and Space Heating· London, lEE, 1964. Some Aspects of Heat Pump Operation in Britain lEE Proceedings Vol 104, Part A, No 15 June 1957. Magazines to look out for. 1. Ele.ctrical Review·25.11.60, 16.5.61, 12.4.63,10.4.64,2_11.73. 2. Steam and Heating Engineer·Aug 68 Feb 69 3. Heating and Ventilating Engineer·March 71, Aug 66. 4. Engineering·8.12.60 5. Electric Comfort Conditioning Journal·(USA) March & Nov 71, April 70. 6. Air Conditioning, Healing & Ventilating·(USA) Various,. (Since 70). 7. Elektrowarme International (Germany) various (since 70).


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

20-22 Taylor Fair Stand the Windmills from France translated from the French by Diseree Llewellen and edited and rewritten by Derek Taylor, whose comments appear in brackets. THE FRENCH original of this, text i, available (if it ha, not gone out of print) from the Societe Parisienne D ·Edition, 43, Rue de Dunkerque 43, Pari,·Xe. It, French title is·14 Eoliennes, Faciles a Construire; by J Raphe. This, amazing book i, packed to the brim with ideas for harnessing this non· polluting energy source (it comes for incredibly low price of one and a hall francs) including various novel transmission systems from bicycle or car components, and details on how to make your own ball bearing·, Although they are designed to be, built, and are on a relatively small sea they are nonetheless pretty sophisticated pieces of hardware, and you will n access to welding equipment, taps and dies, and to a workshop containing a lathe for turning metalwork. A number of the designs are for dynamos no longer made but if you experiment with modern car alternate , rewound dynamos and by reversing electric motors then you should be ,successful. If you want to build ,light larger windmill, than tho,e described then some of the ideas should provide inspiration. But for tho,e of u, not privileged 1 parler Ie Francais, here is a description of windmill, No 6 and 9 in English,h. Windmill No 6 Fa·t Rotating Type This, windmill i, a fa·t rotating blade machine, and was specially designed t provide light for farm building, or workshop, (I don·t know why it ,should be restricted to these facilities). It is intended to be placed on top of the building he lit. Materials needed are: A bicycle pedal crank case and rear bicycle frame, cut as shown on the( drawings. • 180mm of flat iron 3mm thick • 450mm angle iron or duralumin 01 20mm thick (an old broom handle would probably al,o do). • Two steel circle" 5mm thick. • One steel ball, 8mm dia. • One piece of aluminium ,sheet (or strong ply) • One piece of hardwood 80 x 60 x 20 mm and another 100 x 20 x 70mm. • A length of timber (they suggest a 2m to 3m length of 80 x 60mm


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rafter, but I would have thought something like 100 x 100mm would be more suit·able) • One piece of wood lOx 15x 15mm. 15 wood screws. Directional Orientation System Take the ;:>piece of timber or rafter, cut to the required length, and drill a 28 to 30mm diameter hole, 210mm deep, see drawing, then carve the niche for the steel ball with an 8mm dia, drill bit. Next, make the top 80 x 60 x 10mm bearing, pierced through the centre by a 28.5mm hole. This bearing is to have a greasing hole as on the drawing. (No description is given as to how this bearing is made so you will have to improvise). After this, take the tube from the bike frame together with pedal crank case, and plug the end with a cone shaped piece of hardwood (probably applewood would be best if you can get it as this was the stuff the old millwrights used to use for windmill bearings) 20mm deep. The end of the cone should be slightly dished by means of a drill to allow it to accom·modate the steel ball without jamming it. The Propeller This is made of two blades shaped some·thing like an aeroplane·s. Take a piece of oak or beechwood of rectangular section, into which is pierced an 11 mm2 mortise, halved onto the arbor of the bike·s pedal drive, by force, a metal screw at the end of the arbor will prevent the prop from slipping and flying off. (An easier method would be to retain the pedal gear wheel and braze or weld or both the aluminium blades to that). On this piece of wood, make two grooves or gashes. opposed to each other,having a 16mm slant in the width, and into these fix blades cut out of aluminium sheet and bent to give the necessary profile; they could also be cut out of a 7 to 8mm thick ash wood board. Tail Fin or Rudder This is made of aluminium or sheet iron (12mm ply could also be used) cut out as on the drawing, and fixed to the angle iron (or tubing) support framework, that carries the dynamo. The rotating support frame is fixed onto the axle tube, which forms the pivot of the system, With two rings of 3mm thick flat iron (copper and brass would make better conductors) make an insulated ring connection, fixed around the rotating axle, with a carbon contact and a femalesocket formed with a metal spring. One wire from the dynamo can be connected through the slip ring. The other wire can be taken down as an earth through the support frame.


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Windmill No 9 Windmill with 3 Bladed Propeller This type of windmill we now describe is both durable and efficient, and relatively cheap to build, its essential parts coming from scrapped cars (they suggest a Rosen·gart or similar, but whether these are still in existence, or how they compare with English models is difficult to assess, so you will just have to experiment). This mill must be built sturdily, and it is designed to have a high efficiency in order to obtain the maximum amount of power from the mainly light and medium winds that prevail in France (this would also apply to many parts of Britain). Only those windmills with a high rotation speed can use these winds to their maximum. This model has a three bladed propeller, which turns at up to 1500 revs per minute. The propeller is made from 3 wooden blades, fixed onto a wheel hub from 4CV Rosengart or other light vehicle, complete with brake shoes. The wheel disc of this hub (see fig 1) is to be brazed or welded to the tubular pivot P, which slots into tube T which forms the support. Three lengths of tube M, placed at 1200 to each other from the central pivot, are brazed or welded to the cylinder of the hub making an angle of 250 with the surface of this cylinder (see fig 4). The brazing can be carried out with an ordinary blowlamp of which there are many available, and the welding can be either electric arc or oxyacetylene, but remember to protect your eyes from the process. Each of these pieces of tube M, whose outside diameter is 60mm, is split at the top and two metal ·ears· are brazed or welded, prolonging the saw lines so as to form a fastening ring (an easier method would be to make use of the compression ring clips used on the radiator hoses on car water cooling systems). to grip the propeller blade in a fixed position, in their support tubes M. The pivot tube P should be about 53mm outside diameter if the support tube T is 60mm outside dia, with a tube wall thickness of 3mm, which is the minimum. The length of the P should be in the region of 400mm. One end of this tube, forming the top of the pivot, is to have two slots cut, one to allow the passage of the brake lever, and in the other will be articulated the dynamo support ring S (see fig 2). As in fig 1, braze or weld a small tube, through which the bolt fixing the dynamo support ring 5 (see fig 4), can pass. lOOmm below the top of tube P, a thick washer of turned steel or brass should be brazed or welded, with a small groove at midwidth. It can be of 90 to 94mm, depending on the thickness of the tube 100mm dia, 50 to 60mm long, that will be brazed or welded around the cir·cumference of this washer, to form a protective case (see fig 2). Another turned washer (see also fig 2) of 88 to 90mm dia and having a groove similar to the washer mentioned previous· Iy, should be brazed or welded to the top of


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tube T. The pivot tube P, filed down smooth, and well greased, is then slipped into the tube (T) in which it must turn freely, but not loosely. A set of 4mm steel balls are set in between the two washers. The weight of the upper washer pressing on them will keep them in place and the whole. arrangement will form an excellent ball bearing. An insulating belt of mica or ·press·pahn· (li><lt·s the French word but I haven·t found the equivalent word in English. another material that could be a strip of IlVC plumbing pipe of the correct diameter.;or a strip of car water cooling hose) is tightened, just beneath the low·er washer (see fig 2 & 4). Two copper rings (or two small sections of copper or brass tube, with an internal dia frac·tionally larger than the support tube T·s outside diameter, forced around the insulating belt,and wedged in place if necessary) are tightened by welding or with screws (if pvc is used for the insulating belt it would not be advisable to try and weld the copper ring), the edges of the strips forming the rings, covering it·self with a whistle like joint. One single ring is sufficient for the positive contact, and the negative can be the earth, in other words it can be directly connected to the tubes. To ensure contact with the copper; rings, two spring brush contacts·or, more durably, carbon contacts·are fixed on an insulating plate mounted on the inside of . the protective case. To these brushes, the wires coming from the dynamo are con·nected, the wires dropping from the collection rings, joining at the bottom of the tube T, the wires of the distribution circuit. The tube T is to be 60mm outside dia and a minimum of 3mm tube wall thick·ness. Its length will depend on the loca·tion and on the wind possibilities, although the average height is around 5 and 6m (this would only apply if the windmill were mounted some distance away from "the house, or if you have medium·sized trees around, or if you live in a single storey dwelling. But as most two storey houses are around 7m high, the windmill will need to be 10m or even higher, otherwise a large proportion of the winds will be left untapped. 50 it will probably be necessary in those instances to use a stronger mast of 75 to 100mm tubing, or a long enough tele·graph pole, or to build a lattice tower). Two rings tightened to the mast will anchor the indispensable ·shrouds· (or sets of three guying cables), which keep it upright. The base of the mast should have a hole drilled horizontally, and should be fixed to a concrete base, via an iron, plate, previously cast in, to which it will be connected by a bolt of sufficient diameter to support the whole weight of the windmill, which acts as a movable pinion joint. This ·articulation· system will facilitate rapid erection (sic!) and la the maintenance of the electrical or mechanical components. The ·shrouds·


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are made of 3mm, cable and set out round the mast 12 apart (guy cables). Steps to climb the mast for greasing the system without having to lower can be made by welding steel tubing! into holes pierced into the mast tub T at regular intervals (see fig 6). At about one metre from the bas pierce a hole in the mast tube let through the toe of the brake lever" the lever arm itself is 250mm long (, fig 4). The brake will allow the propeller to be immobilised in very high wind The lever on the wheel disc of the hi which operates the brake shoes will bent to pass through the opening at top of pivot tube P. This lever must up in about the centre of the tube, d it will be connected to the lever L il· a cable of steel wire. with a swivel hi E that will allow it to turn with regard to the windmill·s orientation system pivot tube P. The upper brake shoe will have t( grooved with a saw or file, in order t let the friction roller of the dynamo make contact with brake cylinder. The lever L can be made from a II of tube or channel iron. to the end 0 which is welded a toe, connected to swivel hook E. A ring A must pass through the tube T to allow the lever to be anchored against the tube T, to keep the brake on. The propeller is probably the most difficult part to make (see fig 5). Th, blades are cut out of 3 straight board ash or beechwood. without knots, ca 22mm thick by 150mm wide, by 93( long. Draw and cut them out, making sure to obtain the correct profile as shown. To make things easier, cut out a tem·plate from strong cardboard. That way you are more likely to obtain 3 very similar blades. (the best tool to use for carving the blades is a spoke shave. It should only take you a couple of days to come up with a fine set of blades). For the haft piece, the ends of the boards will be doubled on either side by glueing on a layer of wood, and then carving and filing, and smoothing down to get a dia of 54 to 60mm according to the dia of the blade support tubes M, brazed onto the cylinder of the wheel hub as mentioned previously (see fig 5). With the three blades now well smoothed and even, you must now give them a slight twist, so that the end of each blade is warped by 140 to the rest of the wing section. This can be achieved by dipping the blade into 400mm of boiling water, removing and tightening the blade in a vice, then making a small press with two slats or brackets, upon which is placed sufficient weight for the warping to be measured with a protrac·tor. Adjust the position of the wood so as to not make a larger angle, and let the blade dry in this position (see fig 5). Next release the blade carefully, and apply 3 coats of cellulose or oil based varnish. The cylindrically shaped base of


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each blade is then set and tightened into the tubes M with small boilS; it may also be advisable to make a few holes for ,>crew fixing to prevent the blades from slipping. The blades are wedged al an angle of 220 with the flat surface of the cylinder as in fig 4. This angle can be altered; the smaller it is the faster the propellor rotation speed but it is also more diffi·cult for it to turn. A larger angle gives the opposite results. But 220 i· a good average. The dynamo to be used is a 6 or 12 volt car dynamo (can you still get 6v dynamos? It may be necessary to rewind the dynamo to reduce rotational resist·ance and also to provide 6 volts if necessary; a modern car alternator op ate successfully in this set up, you COl also try running an electric motor in reverse) with circuit breaker, but check( that they are in working order. It will be turned by a friction roller (fig 1 & 4) fitted to its axle and supported ed by the interior of the brake cylinder of the wheel hub. The friction roller i made of a series of leather discs, ti·hl ed by bolts that span the length of the roller, between two steel washers. The dynamo is fixed by a flat iron tightening ring S (see fig 4) on a nut; bolt and d lock nut, on the end of the, tube P designed for this (fig 1). The ring S is placed in such a way that the friction roller constantly an( tightly presses against the brake cylinder keeping the dynamo activated by the, rotation of the propeller. The windmill is now ready and se to operate, so now try it out. If everything works satisfactorily, start on the protective cowling. It is designed to protect the mechanical and electrical parts from the elements. It is made f two headlamp cowlings from a mote cycle or an earlier model car which l to have exposed headlamps (you will probably have to design and form y· own from fibre glass or ply etc) weI< to sheet iron. One of the headlamp ( will protect the front of the propeller< and the cylinder, and will have to Ix ed to the latter, whereas the rest will fixed to the top of the dynamo and pivot tube P. The shape of this protective cowling can vary, but it should adjusted to the smallest dimensions possible and be of an aerodynamic s The electric installation is as shown in fig 7 . To maintain permanent sup of power, a storage battery and con panel are used. This consists of a 6 c vol t battery of high capacity (100·1 amp/h), or a bank of several batteries in parallel, and placed in the house workshop 10 be supplied. The control board should be pia near the batteries, and should have and ammeter, and also a connection start the windmill in weak winds b) sending current to the dynamo which will turn it as..t motor. When the propeller-has reached a suitable speed in t wind, it will continue to turn, and i rotation will accelerate until the cil closer and breaker are operated. Th must also be set on the control pan as in fig 7, and not on the dynamo.


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(This windmill could also be used for pumping with the dynamo rep!. by a simple mechanical device).


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 23-30 Harper: the New, Improved Undercurrents Alternative Technology Guide In Undercurrents No 3, Bjorn Eriksson and I, with a lot of help from our friends, compiled a ·guide to sources and con·tacts· in alternative technology. It served its purpose, but dated quickly, and a new one is long overdue. The trouble is that so much has happened since the paleolithic days of 1972 that if we tried to cover everything in the same depth as we did then, we·d fill up a whole issue and more. The only alternative is to break the material up and print it bit by bit·presumably in the usual categories: ·food·, ·shelter·, and so on. And that is what we·re going to do. BUT there·s one snag: it·ll take a long time to get round to some subjects that happen to come low on the list. So this first instalment will be a general selec·tion over the whole field so that people can get started. Before I start I should say that I don·t really ·know· what alternative technology ·is·, so my selection is pretty arbitrary. The last list covered what Bjorn and I happened to be interested in at the time, with odd suggestions from other people wanting a plug for their own favourites. I con·tinue this venerable pattern. Don·t think I·ve read all the books because I haven·t. Neither have I met all the people. I·ve tried to pick people and publications through which (I estimate) anyone can most quickly get to grips with the ·subject· as I see it. I have taken a fairly ·traditional· approach to the scope of alternative technology. I don·t know whether this is good or bad. Basically it·s just me again. There are many things conspic·uously absent that might be in there if 1 had taken a somewhat different inter·pretation. To name but n of them: scrap technology (both in heavy industry and among hippy coprophiles), govern·ment publications, extension services, university research (with a few exceptions) DI Y facilities and manuals, workshop textbooks, tool suppliers, the Science Museum, community action and people·s services, land trusts, molotov cocktail factories, the commune movement, women·s garages, honest farmers, builders, water diviners, technicians of the sacred ... Maybe some of these will have their hour in future instalments. Those who are new to all this might find it difficult to know where to start. I·ve tried to organise the material in each section into a ·basic· part which would probably be best to start on, and an ·additional· part if you get bored with the first lot. Within each part I·ve tried to arrange the items in order not necessarily of quality (a hairy thing to do anyway), but of accessibility and of relevance to the centre·of·concern of what I·m calling ·traditional· AT, what·ever that may be other than a feeling in the water.


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For foreign or otherwise difficult·to·get material, I·ve tried to indicate where it can most easily be obtained, usually by means of Cryptic Letters, to which the key follows: FB = Freak Bookshops: indicates that the item can be found rather generally in movement bookshops, a list of which can be obtained on request from Rising Free. SB = Straight Bookshops: overground publisher and distributor, so item might be found in WH Smiths etc or sometimes in more trendy or specialised booksellers. BL = ·Books· of Leeds, 84 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, Yorks (tel Leeds 42483): getting a distribution network together; stock a lot of American material; often very expensive. CO = Compendium Books, 240 Camden High Street, London NW1 (tel 01·485 8944); split into two parts, one Political, one Freaky; plenty of foreign stuff which is otherwise inaccessible; wide range. RF = Rising Free, 197 Kings Cross Road, London WC]; tel 01·837 0182: very good on radical magazines, booklets, general ephemera and pleasantly scruffy reprints of Great Works etc. BIBLIOGRAPHIES BASIC Anyone of these should be enough to get you started. For the relevant addresses see below. ·Alternative Technology: A guide to sources and contacts· in Undercurrents No 3 Autumn/Winter (1972). Extensive but rather out of dale; partly annotated; unwieldy format; covers most special areas; with theoretical introduction. Copies still available from Peter Harper, 40 Lexham Gardens, London W8. ·Designing for Survival· in Architectural Design July 1972, edited by Colin Moorcraft; classified but unannotated bibliography. Survival Scrapbook series, particularly nos] (Shelter), 2 (Food) and 5 (energy) have excellent and partially annotated bibliographies on the topic covered. (FB) Alternative Sources of Energy issue no 9; (Feb 1973), a complete issue on sources, periodicals, groups; elaborately classified, some annotations; naturally it·s strongest on energy, but has plenty of material on other topics also. (BL) The Last Whole Earth Catalog (Penguin, 1972) contains an enormous amount of useful information about sources, not·withstanding ideological shortcomings. (SB, FB) PERIODICALS BASIC Undercurrents, ·the magazine of radical science and people·s


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technology·, 275 Finchley Road, London NW3; £2 for six issues wherever you are, bimonthly. Essential (of course, what else co·uld I say?) politically all-over the place, but it·s got soul. (You·re fired!·Ed) (RF, CO, BL, FB,·Illm·e SB) 1111;:;· ·In the Making· a directory of p·"P<>sed projects in self·management or r·arifical technology, and people who walllto start or to work in them·; 71 Thlrlwell Road, Sheffield 58 9TF, Yorks;·p a year for two full directories and supplements, or 15p for annual issues. A.., J running guide to projects and people looking for projects, it is absolutely indispensable; also contains short articles and Ietters etc. No 2 is available now. from the USA the most important journals arc: Alternative Sources of Energy, Route 1, Box 36B, Minong, W1 54859, USA; 5 dollars a year, bimonthly. Very good, and getting bigger & better issue by issue; includes articles, reports, reviews, letters, events etc; and Journal of the New Alchemists, New Alchemy Institute (East), PO Box 432, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA; normally obtainable via associate membership of the institute (25 dollars) but 10 dollars should buy a few issues· worth. A fine mixture of whimsy, reports of activity on the New Alchemy farm, freaky graphics, and straight (original) scientific papers (e.g. ·Studies of the ecology of the Characid fi.·..h Srycon guatamalensis in the Rio Tirimbina, Heredia Province, Costa Rica, with special reference to its cultivation a· a food fish·: but that·s only a lo>s leader). We arc trying to organise butt exchange between Undercurrents and these two journals so they can be easily obtained in Britain, but at the moment they must be obtained from the USA. Mother Earth News, PO Box 70, Hendersonville, NC 28739, USA, bi·monthly, 8 dollars d year outside the USA, single copies ·1.40; and its

sibling; (BL CO FB) Lifestyle! (ugh?) PO Box 2300, Hendersonville, NC 28739, USA, same rates, are both extremely useful for practical things and sheer information, although they lay on the homespun philosophy a bit thick sometimes. (BL CO FB) Architectural Design (·AD·) 26 Blooms·bury Way, London, WC1; monthly, £6.40 a year, £4.30 for students; £9.40 & (6.00 overseas. Has an excellent track record of articles and columns on AT, mixed up with the flotsam and jetset of the latest architectural gimmickry. (Subscriptions only, or single copies cash with order). ADDITIONAL The following often contain articles about AT or related matters.


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Peace News, 5 Caledonian Road, London N1, weekly, £5 a year, special 7 week sub for"90p, or 7p a single issue; running · an exccU·nt series of little pamphlets; the lat@sP·windworker5· manual· is more practicSJ1han anything we·ve done in Under&;rents. (FB) Resurgence, 275 Kings Road, Kingston, Surrey;·!\monthly, £150 a year. ·Journal of the fourth world· and organ of green decentralism. (FB) Towards Survival, 79 Sutton Avenue, Eastern Green, Coventry CV 5 7ER; £1.80 a year. ·A monthly journal of survival policies, economics, population, environment, food, sustainable techno·logies, politics, resources·. Good series of articles on eco·nomics in the ·nice· tradi·tion of socialism. The Ecologist;!, Catesby, Molesworth Street, Wadebridge, Cornwall; £3 a year, monthly. Frequent articles on technical alternatives among the cries of Doom. I.m·irol1flu:J11 438 N Skinker Boulevard, Science for People, BSSRS, 9 Poland Street, London W1; bimonthly, £1 a year. Radical orientation, often has sympathetic articles on AT. (RF, CO) Radical Science Journal, 9 Poland Street, · · London W1; 3 times a year, £1. Just ·\\ <· started; heavy ·socialist/Marxist· articles ).\,· of a theoretical kind. Pretensions to academic quality. Almost human. (RF, CO) New Scientist, 128 Long Acre, London WC2, weekly, £9.75 a year, single issue, 18p. Very good indeed for keeping up to date on the straight science world; plenty of social comment and occasional material directly relevant to AT. (SB) ORGANISATIONS The best guide to these is undoubtedly In the Making. It is only fair to say that many of the activities being pursued by these groups can be severely disrupted by too many enquiries and visitors, so be sensitive, and don·t be surprised if you get told to piss off, especially if you·re the BBC or News of the World. BASIC Undercurrents Limited (used to be Partnership) nonprofit company, democratically run and limited by Guarantee. Basically the people who produce Undercurrents under the benign guidance of Godfrey and Sally Boyle. Meetings arc held every Wednes·day evening, tel 01·794 2750, to discuss content, address envelopes, get drunk etc. Anybody is welcome, except the Special Branch, who should ring first. Street Farmers: Street Farm House, Thames Polytechnic Playing Fields, Kidbrooke Lane, London SE9, tel 01·850 8333. Green anarchists, do urban guerilla architecture that almost works, and are very funny. Built


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the (first?) ecohouse and now turning their attention to the conversion of ordinary suburban houses. BRAD (Biotechnic Research and Development): c/o 8 Lambert Street, London N1, tel 01·607 6137. An active community on the point of com·pleting a large·scale semi·autonomous house in the Welsh border country. Sec Undercurrents No 2 ·Blueprint for a Soft Technology Research Community· Should be very good at building by now. Well heeled. Rad· Tech in Pact: 71 Thirlwell Road, Sheffield 58 9TF; tel Sheffield 57945. Sec Undercurrents No 3 ·Radical Technologists: Workers· control in an urban community·. Among other things, working towards radical tech·nology products and processes suitable for an eventual worker·controlled factory_ Produce In the Making, Cambridge University: Technical Research Division, Department of Architecture, 1, Scroope Terrace, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, tel Cambridge 54265. Outstanding ·academic· work on the technology, economics etc of autonomous servicing. Have designed several ·eco·houses· and have a grant to build one. Good on energy. Attached to the group are Robert and Brenda Vale (Mr and Mrs Autonomous Housing) ·The Horse and Gale·, Witcham Toll, Sutton, Ely, Cambs; tel Sutton 723; currently converting an old pub; and Phil Steadman, 83 Norwich Street,Cambridge; tel Cambridge 62035, who has recently returned from conduct·ing a survey of AT and related activities in the USA . Society for Environmental Improvement: National Centre for Alternative Techno·logy, Llwyngwern, Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, Wales; correspondence to PO Box 1,1, Godalming, Surrey; tel Tisted 480. The site is a spectacular abandoned· slate quarry; backed by a mysterious benefactor, and orchestrated by Steve Boulter. Good on methane, alternative propulsion; site available to anyone wish·ing to test out hardware. Open to ATourists in June. Low Impact Technology Ltd; Catesby, Molesworth Street, Wade bridge, Cornwall; tel Wade bridge 2996. Markets AT tools with consultancy service by the redoubtable Andy ·natural, endless, free· MacKillop, Poster catalogue 15p. Rational Technology Unit, Architectural Association, 34 Bedford Square, London WC1 tel 6360974. A fine team, Gerry Foley, George Kasabov and their cronies, wdting and experimenting. Good on urban AT. A lot of things,happening here, and a number of useful bibliograph·ies on various specific topics (wind, heat pumps etc).


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Kit ·I·ve sold my Lancia· Pedler: 119 Park Hill, Clapham, London SW4; tel 01·622 6713. One·man research team working on cheap methods for auton·omous housing. University of Strathclyde Dept of Architecture & Building Science, George St, Glasgow. Much interest an d all sorts of very promising research. Designs for some not·too·freaky eco·houses in the Ork·neys; computer programs for calculating wind·generator and solar collector out·puts under various conditions. Tame physicist. Imaginative but down to earth.

ADDITIONAL The Henry Doubleday Research Association: 20 Convent Lane, Bocking, Braintree, Essex. Decades of research on small·scale organic gardening, and a decentralised research programme with subscribers all over the country taking part in experiments. Annual subscription (3 for quarterly newsletter, reports and materials; newsletter alone 15p each. Brunei Environment Group: c/o Jack Parsons, Department of Sociology. Brunei University. Uxbridge, Middlesex; tel Uxbridge 37188, Have a site and some money to build Brenda Vale’s prize·winning eco·house on the campus, and designing a 4 megawatt windmill. Hmmm .. New Alchemy Institute (East): PO Box 432, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA. Pledged to ‘restore the lands, protect the seas, and inform the earth’s stewards’ but not as wet as it sounds. Have an experimental farm on Cape Cod where they do research in fish·culture, compan·ion planting, wind·power etc; run a decentralised research programme with readers of Organic Gardening andFarming magazine; produce the Journal of the New Alchemists and many other occasional pieces. Associate membership 25 dollars. Shelter Publications: PO Box 279, Bolinas CA 94924; the group which produced the Domebooks and now Shelter, see below; enormous fund of experience in building small structures. Alternative Sources of Energy Collective: Sandy and Eugene Eccli, Rt 6, Box 73, Kingston, NY 12401, USA. A major node in the network of alternative energy enthusiasts in the United States. Aquarius Project: PO Box 4013, Berkeley CA 94704, USA. Radical technology group trying to apply advanced but non· capitalist methods in a network of commune·based production units. See article ‘Revolutionary engineering’ in AD Vol 43 No 3, 1973). British Society for Social ResponSibility In Science (BSSRS): 9 Poland Street, London IVI; tel 01·437 2728; member· ship £2 a year or (1 for students, unem·ployed etc. Undertake various radical projects, including currently a mobile pollution monitoring project. Publishes Science for


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People and occasional pamphlets. BIT: 146 Great Western Road, London Wll; tel 01·2298219. 24·hour informa·tion service on every variety of alter·native life and love. Publishes Bitman, currently Bitwoman and prospectively Bithuman, riddled with information on publications, groups, events·(l a year or 25p single copies. They also produced the Book of Visions, catalogue of alterna·tive projects, mostly crazy,many relevant to AT (out of print but try to borrow one). Intermediate Technology Development Group Ltd: Parnell House, 25 Wilton Road, London SWIV 1)5; tel 01·828 5791·4. A very important source of material for small·scale technologies in the Third World. Not noted for its radicalism, but plenty of experience. Publish a useful catalogue of materials Tools for Progress, £ 1. Brace Research Institute: McDonald College, McGill University, 5t Anne de Bellevue, 800 Quebec, Canada. Also specialises in Third World problems; very good and useful series of technical pamphlets. Write for list of publications, miscellaneous publication No 17. Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA): 3706 Rhode Island Avenue, Mt Rainier, MD 20822, USA. Also con·centrates on Third World issues, but not exclusively; publishes useful Village Technology Handbook, 7 dollars. Write for list of publications, which include ‘Bat Control’ and ‘Smoking fish in a cardboard smokehouse’. Project De Kleine Aarde (Small Earth Project): Munsel 17, Boxtel NB, the Netherlands. A growing Dutch group that have established an experimental farm and publish the excellent magazine De Kleine Aarde (small earth), if you read Dutch, 20 guilders a year, quarterly, from same address. Basically into eco·technology, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. ‘La Terrisse’, La Ribcyre, 07140 Les Assions, France. At the extreme austere eco·primitivist end of the AT spectrum, run by Philippe Arreteau and his colleagues. Very good on organic gardening and doing without almost everything. Gothenburg Alternative Technology Group: Bjorn Erikson, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chalmers Tekniska Hogs·ola Fack, 5·402 20 Goteborg 5, Sweden. Working on an inventory of resource·conserving technologies. And of course, lots of people who don’t call themselves ‘alternative technologists’ or anything like that, but who know a lot more about it than we do. BOOKS/ ARTICLES/ PAMPHLETS BASIC Articles: From back numbers of Undercurrents: No 2: ‘Soft Technology: Blueprint for a Research Community’, by Janine


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and Robin Clarke; No 3; ‘Radical Technologists: Workers’ Control in an Urban Community: by Dave Haye·, Robin Fielder and Mavis Kirkham; ‘Eco·Unit’ by John Wood; ‘Alternative Technology: Guide to Sources and Contacts’ by Peter Harper and Bjorn Eriksson. No 4: ‘Ramifications and Propagations of Street Farm’ by Bruce Haggart and Graham Caine; ‘Environmentalists versus Ecologists’, interview with Murray Bookchin; ‘What kind of alternative?’ by Mike Grey. No 5: ‘What’s what, wind·watt·wise’, by Earle Barnhart and Marc Sherman; ‘Technology for Decentralisation’ by John Wood; ‘Transfiguration among the windmills’ by Peter Harper. ‘Technology for an Alternative Society’ by Robin Clarke, New Scientist, 11 January, 1973, p 68; the articles in the special issue of Architectural Design entitled Designing for Survival (July 1972); articles in a special issue of Impact of Science on Society, Vol 23 No 4, Winter 1973 entitled’ Appropriate Technology’ (UNESO, Place de Fontenoy Paris 7, France: 5F), ‘The Sun’s Not Running Out’, by Godfrey Boyle, Time Out N0203, 18/an 1974; ‘Notes on Soft Technology’ by Peter Harper, Theorla to Theory (sic) Vol 8 No 2, April 1974. Gordon & Breach

BOOKS·PRACTICAL TYPE Survival Scrapbooks I Shelter; 2 Food; 3 Access to Tools; 3a Play; 4 Paper Houses (not available in Britain yet); 5 energy; graphically splendid, with good bibliographies; good to start off with although on the whole there is not enough detail to tell you need to know about specific things. The latest one on energy is particularly good £1.50, Unicorn Books, Nant·Gwilu, Llanfynydd, Carmarthen, Wales. (CO, RF, BL, FB) The Owner·Built Home by Ken Kern; Sierra Route, Oakhurst, CA 93644, USA. Very good discussions with detailed plans, including AT cliches like solar heating. Self·Sufficiency by John and Sally Seymour, faber 1973; down·to·earth treatment of growing food for J family on a smallholding; vegetarians need not apply. Shelta: Shelter Publication” Box 279, Bolinas, CA 94924; dalliing successor to Domebook 2 (which i· still available from BL although out of print). Imagina·tive and gentle exploration of the whole idea of shelter in the style and format of DB 2; includes the evocative essay Smart But Not Wise by Lloyd Kahn; bibliography. (BL) Collected works of the Technical Research Division, Dept of Architecture, University of Cambridge (see above). A complete list is included in In the Making No 2. Very high quality, but they cost quite a bit. I think the following are particularly useful: ·Economics of Solar Collectors, Heat


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Pumps and Wind Generators·, and ·Economics of Water Collection and Waste Recycling· both by Gerry Smith (60p each); ·The autonomous servicing of Dwellings· by R Church,G Crouch and B Vale·very good sum·mary of the rationale for autonomous housing, with many tables of data (£2.20); ·The autonomous House· by Brenda Vale·description of a prize-winning design, (£1.00); ·The autonom·ous Servicing of Dwellings·Design Proposals· by G Crouch: another auto·nomous house design (75p). Methane, Fuel of the Future, by Bell, Boulter, Dunlop and Kieller; Andrew Singer, Publisher, The Mill Cottage, Bonisham, Cambs; 75p paper, £2 hard·back. A useful introduction with a good bibliography, but not very practical if you want to roll your own. For this you need (FB) Methane Digesters for Fuel Gas and Fertiliser New Alchemy Institute (West). 15 W Anamapu. Santa Barbara CA 93101. USA: 3 dollars. Gives extensive figures on what you can expect from various sources and amounts of organic waste, and blueprints of two small·scale digesters. A model of AT publishing. Systeme ·D ·: Societe Parisienne D·Edition, 43 Rue de Dunkerque, 75011 Paris, France. Series of booklets (9F each) with immensely practical plans for DIY work. In French. Try No 9 on windmills from scrap parts. New Sources of Energy United Nations 1964 (HMSO: sales No 63/1/41). Locus classicus (as they say) for responsible/ respectable medium·to·Iarge scale alternative sources of energy. Seven volumes: 1 General: 2·3 Geothermal; 4·6 Solar; 7 Wind. Various prices, often very hard to get hold of. I got a set at the UN for about 30 dollars. but they can be bought separately. Three excellent examples of concise practicality are the Peace News hand·books on bikes and on windworking (5 Caledonian Road, London N1) and the BIT Squatters Handbook (5p from BIT). BOOKS· THEORETICAL TYPE BASIC Post·Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin, Ramparts Press, Berkeley CA 94704 USA 1971; 3 dollars. You really should read this. Contains the famous essay ·Towards a Liberatory Technology· and proposals for just that, decentralised production and living. (BL, FB) Fields, Factories and Workshops, by Peter Kropotkin, Blom 1968, about £4 if you can find the thing; a justly cele·brated classic. and the sequel to (SB) The Conquest of bread, Allen Lane the Penguin Press 1972; 0.00. Small is Beautiful by EF Schumacher, Blond and Brigg, 1973; 0.25. A paean to the intermediate scale by a ·Buddhist economist·; quaintly inspiring, with a dash of old time religion. (SB) Tools for Conviviality by Ivan D Illich, Calder and Boyars 1973; £2.25. Propos·es a ceiling on technological develop·ment, and ·conviviality· (; graceful play) as criterion instead of efficiency. Brilliant rhetoric but maddening gaps in the argument. The same goes for (SB) Energy and


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Equity also by Illich, Calder and Boyars 1974. 60p. Focuses on trans·port and tries to argue that we all lose if anyone goes over 15 mph. Concise anyway. (SB) Sources, edited by Theodore Roszak. Harper Torchbooks 1972; contains many germane essays, inCluding one by Bookchin. two by Schumacher, and an excellent article on transforming the city environment by the newspaper Berkeley Tribe. (CO) A Landscape for Humans by Peter van Dresser, Biotechnic Press, £1 Rito, New Mexico, USA, or through New Alchemy Institute (East). A discussion of the economics and technology of decentral·isation in the context of the region where the author lives. Some books which haven·t been publish·ed yet but should be worth looking out for: Alternative Technology and the Politics of Technological Change David Dickson, Fontana: Lots of political theory; for a foretaste see David·s article in first issue of Radical Science journal. Radical Agriculture edited by Richard Merrill, Harper and Row; ·a comprehensive collection of writings (mainly new material) by activists trying to create wiser uses of the land and help return people onto the landscape·. Alternative Sources of Energy a book ( bits from back numbers of ASE (see above); still being compiled. ADDITIONAL Communitas: Means of Livelihood am Ways of Life Paul and Percival Good Vintage 1960; Wildwood House. A seminal and now classic work on different ways of organising production and community life. (FB, SB, Liberation and the Aims of Science, b Brian Easlea, Chatto & Windus. 1973; ·on the obstacles to creating a more beautiful world·: a debate on science and life in the finest tradition of romantic Marxism. Anarchy in Action by Colin Ward, Allen and Unwin 1973. Anarchy is everywhere now, if we would only wake up and take hold of it. Essays by the former editor of Freedom and Anarchy. (Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics on Transcendence in Post·Industrial Society by Theodore Roszak, Faber 1973). A manifesto of transcendental radicalism alternatives to materialist desiccation i left·wing politics; and lots of Blake. (· News from Nowhere by William Morris Routledge 1970. paper, Morris·s classic Utopian novel, with ·simplicity, directness and sensual delight·; socialism with a compassionate rather than ideological basis. ( Cottage Economy, by William Cobbet Cedric Chivers New Portway Reprint· 1966; another classic of one of the m colourful and irascible English radical of the early 19th century. Strategy for a Living Revolution by George Lakey, Grossman 1 973. Non· violent revolution, beginning now. Paths in Utopia by Martin Buber, Be,


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Press 1958. Erudite discussion of the bases of utopian thought and its necessity; utopianism as a strategy as well ; a goal. Design with Nature by Ian McHarg, Doubleday 1969. A comprehensive approach to ·ecological planning·; beautiful maps and pictures. Living the Good Life. by Helen and Seolt Nearing, Schocken 1960. The, of two now octogenarian ex·Party members doing their own thing in Vermont. Workers·Councils and the Economic a Self· Managed Society Solidarity pamphlet No 40, 123 Latt Road, London E6. Some proposals f libertarian socialist organisation of production dating from 1957 in the wal of the Hungarian uprising: translated from French, with contemporary comments from Solidarity. Decorated with hedgehogs. Really. (RF, CO)


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 25-26 Petrol StinksPETROL ACCOUNTS for over 60% of atmospheric pollution. Its manufacture in vast quantities is a misuse of oil·resources. What Is petrol? Petrol is a mixture of hydrocarbons (compounds containing carbon and hydrogen) of greatly differing molecular form and weight. These are, of course. extracted from the great soup of chemical compounds contained in crude oil · by distillation, catalytic cracking and other methods. Petrol compounds boil between about 300C and 2000C (970F and 400°F). In addition, small quantities of other compounds are introduced to improve efficiency. chiefly lead tetraethyl, (about 2.3 gm. of actual lead metal per gallon), and ethylene dibromide, which reacts with lead deposited inside an engine, and flushes it out as volatile lead dibromide. Sulphur impurities are also present. What happens when It Is burnt? Because such a large number of highly differing hydrocarbons occur in petrol. it is substantially impossible to introduce the right amount of oxygen. and to create the correct combustion conditions, to burn all the compounds completely. The emission from a petrol engine therefore contains unburnt hydrocarbons (He), carbon monoxide (CO) from incomplete oxidation, sulphur oxides (SO) from impurities, nitrogen oxides (NO ) resulting from oxidation of atmospheric nitrogen inside the engine, and solid particles. See table 1. When these substances are in the atmosphere. what happens? Photochemical smog is formed when hydrocarbons and nitric oxide combine and recombine in a chain of 13 reactions. whenever sunlight energy is available. Photochemical smog is a choking irritant that attacks mucous membranes · the eyes, mouth, the throat and lungs of its victims, lowering resistance to respirat·ory diseases. Carbon monoxide substitutes for oxy·haemoglobin and forms carbonyl haemoglobin in the blood stream. causing oxygen starvation and eventually brain damage. Sulphur oxides are washed out of the air by rain as corrosive sulphuric acid, and are poisonous to inhale. Particulates lodge in lung·tissue. and are proved to be carcinogenic. (Cancerous). City street litter in USA contains 1% lead metal by weight · more than some lead ores. Lead is a cumulative poison of the central


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nervous system, and is directly implicated in the high incidence of mental illness among city children. USA legislation. (There is no equivalent UK legislation. and British roads are the world's most crowded(L) Stimulated by photochemical smog problems of the west coast cities, the Federal Clean Air Act was amended in 1970 to set in advance increasingly stringent levels for permitted exhaust·pollution. Table 2 shows the Californian standards for 1974 and 1975, together with the current best levels of emission for an average V8 engine running on petrol and on propane. and indicates that propane is far and away the cleanest fuel available. Even this is not the whole story. for some hydrocarbons are more dangerous in the atmosphere than others, although USA legislation lumps them all together. Those resulting from petrol use are considerably more reactive than those resulting from propane use, so they form more smog. There is considerable doubt that the planet can cope with continued, increasing burning of fossil fuels. An increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may lead to the build up of a 'greenhouse' effect. whereby radiation is reflected back to earth instead of escaping to space, the earth heats up and the polar ice caps begin to melt. (One estimate is that if all fossil fuels were burnt. then there would be an average 90C rise in world temperature. a 50 feet rise in sea·level and a vastly increased carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere). Only 2% of oil extracted is currently used as raw material for the entire chemical. pharmaceutical and plastics manufacturing industries. We burn 98% of an irreplace·able resource. Our proposal, that greater use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas should be made. must be seen in this perspective. It too is produced from ,oil, and to burn it rather than use it over great time for the real good of mankind. is certainly not to be advocated. However. if you must power your 20th century personal mobility module with 350 million year old decomposed veget·ables, then do it as cleanly as you can with paraffin gas. A far better way. though, is to generate and use your own methane · a naturally regenerated resource. Paraffin gases as an alternative Because the paraffin gases are of simple chemical formulae, it is relatively easy to burn them completely, at best produc·ing water vapour and carbon dioxide only. (In practice, this isn't wholly achievable.) No


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additives are required. WE PROPOSE. THAT AS AN IMMEDIATE,. EASILY ACHIEVED PROJECT. YOU CONVERT YOUR CAR TO RUN ON ONE OF THE PARAFFIN GASES. If you also pool your resources with other car users, and share journeys to work. you will have made a significant personal contribution to decreasing pollution and resource depletion. What are the paraffin gases? The paraffin gases all have the same basic chemical formula (C H2 .oJ. The 1 lightest, with only only 1 cg;· atom per molecule. is methane (CH4h:·,then come ethane. propane, butane and(others we need not consider. Heavier paraffins are liquids and waxy solids. 'P·ffl'affin' (kerosene) is a blended mixture, contain·ing some paraffins, but many other substances also. All paraffins. as you WOUld expect, have closely similar phYSical properties. Table 3 shows how the physical properties vary in relation to molecular weight.

(petrol is included as a comparison. It is not a paraffin.) Because butane and propane are relative·ly easily compressed to liquid to be transported, they are known as Liquefied Petroleum Gas, (LPG). since they are obtained from oil. Methane is not an L·G, because with a boiling point of ·159 F (·162 C) it requires refrigeration and pressure storage of considerable sophistication . to be maintained as a liquid, though it can be partially compressed for use. ::\methane is sewage gas .... 'North Sea Gas· .. Natural gas. It is both a fossil fuel and a constantly generated fuel. Its main drawback is this: without expensive, energy·consuming refriger·ation and compression, and heavyweight storage tanks, it cannot be easily trans·ported. (However the process is used, and Algerian methane is imported to UK in refrigerated tankers.) A car with an inflatable methane bag at fairly low pressure can carry conveniently only about enough gas for 50 miles. (This may be a criterion for spacing commun·ities in a biotechnic society:) The immediate effect of requiring an increased output of LPG and less gasoline would be an increased output of diesel oil. But with changes to refining equipment this does not have to be the case. With sufficient


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expenditure it is now possible to' split up the crude oil in virtually any desired way. You can now see that there are two alternatives for action. The palliative solution, using LPG as a clean fuel deriv·ed from oil that could be put to better uses, is the one open to you if you are city bound. The Biotechnic solution only works if you live in a rural environment with lots of natural waste available, and which will yield gas at a steady rate limited by the size of the input (excrement, mainly) to your digesters. (Techniques are, however, being developed to enable even urban dwellers to generate substantial quantities of methane. by feeding digest·ers with special inputs', such as algae, sugar beet, and other organic material with high photosynthetic conversion efficiency. We'll have more informat·ion in up·coming issues of UNDERCURRENTS. ) What happens to the engine running on paraffin gas · pollution reduction. From table 3 it can be seen that the ideal air/fuel ratio for propane, by weight. is 15.7:1. For petrol it's 14.8:1. Therefore, if 1 Ib. of the ideal propane/ air mixture' is burnt, 1280 btu are produced. (Propane has 21600 btu/lb.) And if lib. of the ideal petrol/air mixture is burnt. 1280 btu are again produced. (Petrol has 20200 btu/lb.) The figure for butane is 1290 btu. As a consequence of its volability. methane needs no pre·heating, and can be effiCiently introduced into the engine using the simplest technology. It is an excellent fuel, having a low flame speed and high octane rating. Propane and butane. separately and as various mixtures is available commercial·ly for a wide variety of uses. Oil is currently cracked to yield large amounts of petrol, small amounts of LPG and relatively small amounts of fuels heavier than gasoline. (Such as diesel oil.) So from a 1 lb. charge of mixed fuel and air, very much the same amount of power can be extracted. But of course the LPG/air mix has a smaller mass of fuel. That's good. But it is also less dense. so there is some difficulty getting the same weight of charge into the cylinders as one would using petrol. Because of this. a power reduction of about 6·8% is to be expected. There's nothing to worry about here · you're simply using less fuel, and most modern cars are overpowered anyway. The inlet valves will run at a slightly higher temperature, but exhaust temper·atures are slightly lower, because the engine is running with less power. It is said. (particularly by the lead manufact·urers) that lead deposits prevent 'sink' ·a form of valve wear caused by hard particles of iron oxide embedded on the surface of the valves and seating. This is dubious. and valve wear is unlikely to be Significantly changed, The deposition of carbon in the cylinders is reduced dramatically, and the


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deposit·ion of lead ceases. Wear to pistons and cylinders is greatly reduced. Oil dilution by combustion products is dramatically lowered. An oil change will last 15000 miles. In short, if LPG were to sell at the same price as petrol, the savings gained through lower maintenance costs and reduction of oil consumption would repay the cost of conversion. All LPG containers must have a 'Class A Certificate' . (Home office report on Lpg containers.) This means they must be fixed in position, be tested to withstand specified pressure, and have certain fittings and safety devices. It is not legal to use gas bottles in a vehicle. The ':\Motor Vehicles Construction and Use Act' requires all pipework carrying gas above 15Ib/sq. in. pressure to be solid drawn steel, having metal to metal joints. This is wildly over cautious, and will be revised soon to allow the use of copper pipe or bundy tube (brake·line type flexible tube). Si nee a methane system operates at low pressure, it is outside the scope of the regulations. But enterprising private motorists would be very hard to trap, and bottled gas is a little cheaper than petrol. And the furore associated with the prosecution of a man who refuses to pollute as he drives' would be a delightfully embarrassing even· for any self-conscious regime.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Woolston Small·Scale Water·Power FEUDAL RIGHTS First section NOT corrected.No example 111ustrate2 the ancient role of control of nat·ral sources of energy as a means of social control quite 80 pungently as the hiFltory of corn·llI.ll::"lng by .... ater·poyer. There is nothing na .... in the translation of natural and mutual depe·dencies into a dependence upon the higher human authority. "·hat is ns .... in our tillles 1s the extent of the appropriation and 1 ts accompanying enyironmental despoliation. 7he euphoric na!vlty vf tte Large Dam builders has a long and dishonourable history. with preliminaries in the feudal lord· s "rights of sake". If the lord of the manor built a .... ater·cfll. he could compel all of his tenant! to grind their corr. at hie mill. Millowning landlords at about t·e tloe of the Do·esday Book began actively to prevent the construction of any ot.1er lI:.i1l9 than their Olm., and to punish any tenants who tried ·o go outside the oanor to grind their corn. This proto·monopoly syste· is somewhat ingenuously described by a nineteenth century corn·milling industrialist in the ·History of Corn Milling· : "Pr·arily of cou=se no injustice wa· involved in tenants being compelled to grind at :::ills bull t esoec1ally for their convenience and comfort by the local capitalist and landOlm.er, the I!:.anorial lord. But thp, ·ecessity !or the exercise of these philanthropic motives on the part of landowners early passed away, and in later ages soke mills were mainteined by ·orial lords solely as a source of v·uable Inco·e ••• ?opuI3r nostility to manorial mills generally resulted in the astriction of tenants bein· allowed to lapse, and the special priviledges of ·the landlords aba."ldoned." Milling Boke terminated at length when the nineteenth century Local Authorities fou."ld the·aelves compelled to buy out the remaining rights. There were a couple of savage twists in the feudal system of milling soke. rhe lord, for example, was to have complete "toll I.nd hopper freedom" over both his tenants and his rent·paying miller. These ri·ts meant that the lord was not expected to pay any toll, nor W&3 he even expected to wai·t his turn at the mill. "Hopper freedom" was the absolute order that upon arrival of tl·:.e lord·s own grain at the ·ill, the hopper shute ·as to be clearP.d, ... ai+:ir·!" tenan";s pushed aside. and the lord·s corn to be grOlmd and delivered at once. ·othlng seems to have b·en behind this order except tne ·eed to ·;ress the vassals with the power and dignity of their r·ler. Ev·n the expedient of supressing an older and potentially self·sufficient


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technology was known to the fp.udal lord. who took steos to ensur· tta· ha.·d·mills were not used surr·pt·ticu;ly in the ho:::es of his te·ants. The logic of soke, by ·hlch a naturall;:r dispersed energy rpso·U·ce \oI8.S concentrated in a fe ... etrietlv IL·ited locations and its use ·intained in the control of a prlviled·ed few. finds i+:·elf :::any t·es ·ified ie our own tloes in spect·cular ?tojects fo· orbiting solar po·er s·tions, electricity frc· 8e·.a·e, etc. Control over natural dependencies is control over people:

IN SETTING PERSON AGAINST FERSON AND HUMANKIND AGAINST NATURE, CAPITALISM HAS LIMITED AND RESTRAINED SKiLl AND INGENUITY EVEN IN MECHANICS. THE TUNNEL VISION WHICH RESULTS FROM THE DISCOVERY AND UTILISATION OF FOSSIL·FUELS HAS LED TO A WORLD LITTERED WITH BANAL AND SHOODY INVENTIONS.

SITES Exactly where and how to draw off water·power depends upon ambient conditions and a total energy plan for the area. The conception of riparian rights (shares in the use of a river) should be extended to include all the communities of the biosphere. Other available sources of renewable energy might appear less tempting in terms of "free! fuel and low labour costs, but in the case of water·power the full cycle of ecological effects is long and full account must be taken even in small·scale projects. An installainstallationtion which is capable of directly driving several machines simultaneously or alternatively may be more useful than one which crudely converts all of its energy into elect·ricity at high loss. "Isohyetal" or rainfall contour maps can be used to determine quantities and probabilities of flow. Records of surface water run·off where available are more reliable. The observed states of water ecology in a stream may also give clues, if we knew just how to read them and could establish a reliable yardstick. (Just such an ecological yardstick has already been developed to give astonishingly accurate information about prevailing wind directions and forces. Five progressive types of deformation of trees are checked by Griggs in Putnam·s ·Power from the Wind· 1948). The existence of certain types of planaria, minnow, trout, and roach, etc. together with a knowledge of water purity, temperature and sediment might yield useful info·rmation about "stream history" indicating depth and veloc·ity of flow year·round. The roots of trees such as the willow which extend out into the water leave an automatic record of force and depth of flow.


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More conventional means of measuring stream flow are given by Hamm •. The "bucket method" of measuring flow rate is suitable for small streams «1ft3/sec.) Medium·sized streams (.>1 ft /sec.) require a "weir" method similar to that described in James Leffel Co. literature and repro·duced in UC 2. For larger streams there is an approximate but apparently quite adequate "floating stick method", as used by Leonardo, whose practice it was to walk along the river bank wheeling an "odometer" and singing musical scales up and down to measure time: The available gross quantity of power depends equally upon flow·rate and head (theoretically P=F x H) but this takes no account of losses in pipework or channel, wheel or turbine, etc, Head is the height of a body of water. An idea of the importance of this factor may be got by puncturing a series of holes up the side of a can, filling it with water, and observing the behaviour of the jets as it empties. A sophisticated method of measuring on·site head is to sum a succession of measurements made with a surveyor·s level and scale, but a carpenter·s level or a

Chinese meniscus level and scale would be sufficiently accurate. (The meniscus level is a bamboo tube floated on the surface of a rice·cup full of water. The tube is used for sighting along). All measurements of flow should of course be made in the season of least flow if a guarantee of “firm” power is desired. Sites on rain·fed streams have an annual flow pattern phased with seasonal precipitation. but those on glacier·fed streams have max·imum flow during melt period. Maximum “firm” power is obtainable from run·of·river type schemes, which rely upon good supplies of running water and eliminate the need for a dam. The least reliable source of water·power is from tidal mills unmodified by pumped storage. In the golden age of the corn·mill the dependability of water·power was preferred. whenever possible. to the “inconstant” wind. Days of calm or storm could immobilise a windmill, but a well ·regulated and well·sited water·mill could depend even 1n times of drought on a useful head of water. In areas of the globe such as Europe where mean annual rainfall almost never varies by more than a factor of 1:2, and monthly means are not much more, good sites are not rare, particularly if you are not in competition for the 6· or so of remaining unexploited potential at large·scale sites. Schemes are divisible into those without storage and those with. There is broad differentiation amongst storage schemes between those using moderate head and large catchment area (e.g. by a weir at the exit to a shallow pond) and those using higher head and smaller catchment area (e.g. by temporarily arresting a mountain torrent). The most successful schemes are modest. If the intake to the head-race represents quite a small proportion of flow borrowed, not only is a “firm”


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supply better guaranteed, but the stream is less likely to resent your intrusion. Flood waters over-topping the dam would often be fatal. Floods must be allowed to flow via a spillway over, under, through or around the dam. A wide spillway crest or weir provides the usual solution. Fast flowing water or water under great pressure is a formidable and destructive adversary. It can disintegrate a dam. push it bodily forwards, tip it over, or gradually undermine it by seep or erosion at the base.

Next section NOT corrected:THE CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY The control of natural water resources for the production of food. and energy had had an important role as a means of social control, Capitalists, despite the dyn·1C ir.n·vati· role ·hey h·ve b·en credited with by, a:on,rst otten, ·’arx “,,, .. :.:i F.n·eh in the C04l:Wlilt I’tar.ifesto, depended for seT’!ral ·:.u:dred y·”n largely on the exploitation of unaided h’· :uscle·p?wer. Bowever, several centuries before the ·at “captains of industry· introduced their Industrial Revolution. watpr·po·er was us· extensiTely to support the emergent ·ining and metallurgical indue tries. ““ater·power wa.s used for mine drainage, forced vl”ntil etlon, and for crushhuf ores; but hu:nan labour (the “eoteCMic” machinery of wage .lavu) remz.1ned the f’undamentd source of po .... !!, It was not until the 18th century and the peak of the “pale·t·cr· era that the manufacturing capit31ists r_attained the hvel of tt. Ceudal lord and began to realise the potential of artificial po·r sourc·s under their =onopolbtic control. In England, new tu:tllr _Ills began to proliferate alor.g tne w·ter courses ar.d with the introductbn of such products of mecrlanical cunnirt.! as the jloJ·2il”’ c’ropping·t:achine, puneh·d. card loojj, a..“‘\i s;ir.nlng Jenny, tne mOTe:nent really began to gain ih O\l!l. em::ent:u:n. ‘!‘he ;l:‘incipal 6oS’ of ·ls expansion, with its associated ;lrcce·. of ·’e degradatien of th’l’ individual worker into a “·ere appe:‘”.d·e of the machin,,“, was the Wle of sltall·scale water·power. This too was the period” the Luddite., whose tar·eh were ofter. I!:achinery operated by ‘·ater ·power and owned by corn·:Illli· indWltrial1sh. In a ahort “‘J’!!·cr of time capitalise had pa.ned from a t1tate of labour·power bucd indus try. which was essentia:ly continuous with the 8laTe·se· economy that originatf’d so=e 5 or 6 COO lean eArlier 1:‘1 Neolithic times. through the at .... e of using _bient ener6:( sources extendv. and into the “neotechnic·era of large·scale fo.sil fuel u.e. All thia o\i&1t to lI!ake it clear that although a monopoly of energJ reaources i8 an e·8ential organ of ·s. social repres3ion, the resources do not ·ecessarily ha,e to be large in scale. An ecologica.lly sou.·d an:! hich1y decentrali::led economy is not without its detrimental uses for


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s::>ciety, when cor:.trol is in the wrtlng har·s. S·all·scale decen’traliaed exploitation exists 1n our own d’Y in much inte·edi.te technology as advocated by develcrment bodies for the third world. (See’Science ·or People’ ·0.20).

POTENTIAL ·.nt l.r·scale h·drc·l·ctrlclty de·9 prodigious waste of fflourc •• and deatructio:‘l. ot enYironcent.as catalogued in UC5. ‘!‘be &:‘.11\1.&1 output in Britain is uticated lUI 161: 10k.‘h/year (‘f’ul!1 Polic,’ BMSO). Thill 19 ·nerally claUe1 to be a very to.1gb prope>r·tion of potential, IT.It plant opportW\ities c.nder .. bout 250k1J are ·.id.red ftur.econo·lc”. errie!al esticate3 distort the facta about ·. natural distribution of water·pover ar.1 omit all the potential 1 .. 11 hyrtropower !J1teu. Calculations Enow that by tapp!n€” the ·t.ntl.1 ot sma1ger streams total hydro·electr·e outp·t could be railed to 40 ::I: 10 kVn/year in Britain. (.I.. McKillop in 17he !:eelogiat’ D.se. 1972).

DAM BUILDING If you decide however to try to establish a working relat·ionship with with your stream, while confining it behind an artificial barrier, the dam may be of earth, wood, concrete, stone, tarpaulin, etc. Still water is held .satisfactorily by earth but moving water is not. Earth ie therefore not suitable as a spillway. Crib dams are good in Umber country, and are usually weighted with rocks. Pile·driven planks are used to prevent seepage. A timber dam is capable of forming its own spillway over the crest. Concrete and masonry dams must be built down to a solid footing to prevent leakage and shifting. Spillways present few problems. Tensioned tarpaulins have been used recently in Russia to provide cheap and easily re·locatable water·power from smaIl·scale resources. Adequate anchorage presents serious problems.

WHEELS AND TURBINES Water·wheels are far from obsolete. They are attractive especially where fluctuations in flow’ rates are large. 10hp (1.5kW) is easily available from a moderately · sized water·wheel, and 40·60 (30·45kW) from a large one. This power Is most useful for slow·speed applications, though DC generation is possible. Gearing and belting (with inherent friction loss) is required to run most machinery. Suitable applications include flour·mills. agricultural machinery. pumping for drainage&e or .... water·supply, forge·hammer. blast·furnace bellows. fulling of cloth, sawing timber domestic equipment. and processes such &s paper making and


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manufacture of explosives. Constant speed·regulation is barely practical. so water·wheels are used primarily to drive D:machinery which can take large fluctuations in rotational speed. A water wheel, because of its rugged design requires much less attention than a turbine. It is self·cleansing, and unlike a turbine does not need to be protected from debris. The horizontal wheel of the Norse·mill is capable of a rather inefficient 0.5hp · sufficient however to replace a moody donkey .... with a “tireless” machine. Vertical wheels are of three main types · overshot, breast and undershot. The terms refer to the point at which .... ater flow actuates the wheel. The first two use weight at water falling into buckets, while the third is driven by the force of the current. as is a turbine. The oversjot ..mee1 uses beads of 1o·,Oft. and flow rates of 1·30ft leec. and gives an efficiency of between 60%·8·. It is thus most suitable UNDER{URRENTS/6 where there is a naturally bigh fall of water. The bucket or “float” 1s designed so as to retain water until its “work” is done. Breastshot wheels, like overshot, turn by weight, but in the opposite sense of rotation. The under·shot w·eel uses beads of 1.5 · 10ft. and flow rates of 10·1OOft./eee. and gives an efficiency between 60<·15%4 The developed undershot or 1mpu1ee·wbeel (a turbine) has an efficiency of 80;(.·9Oi’ or more, and is used for high heads and low flow rates. Size and weight per hp is small. Construction of a Michell (Banki) type turbine is possible with welding equipment and a small machine works such as th08e used to repair farm machinery. With turbines two different principles are involved · impulse and reaction. Impulse turbines use high·pressure jet(s) directed at the buckets. Head of water is converted into kinetic energy. There is much scope for variation of design and number of jets and buckets to extract maximum efficiency. Reaction turbines use two sets of curved vanes. one stationary and the other free to rotate. Water leaving the guide vanes supplies energy to the runner, partly by pressure and part in kinetic form. A totally submerged horizontal wheel would be the logical extension of the principle of the Michell (Banki) type turbine in which water passes twice through the runner before discharge. A horizontal wheel might work on the principle of the “panemone” (see fig4 3 in John Wood’s article in UC 5). and would presumably be relatively large, and rotate slowly but with high torque and be suitable for use in rather sluggish streams. GEAR Gearing with wood engaging in iron reduces wear on slow·speed machinery. The t .... o different materials “marry” better together. quieter and smoother running being also obtained. In the traditional European water·mi11 the primary gear·wheel was of water·resistent oak, and the other gears would be of hardwoods such as apple, hornbeam, beech or oak. Paired gears were not placed in exact ratio to one another but


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differed by + one wandering tooth. This was another trick for reducing ;;;ear. Wooden cogs or teeth were either dowel sections with rounded ends engaging in a “lantern” wheel. or beveled chips of wood wedged in place between a pair of iron hoops. Gears would be engaged or disengaged to drive machinery according to the flow of water and the demand for power. E·LEC·T·RIC·ITY An electric water·power installation can produce either DC or AC current. DC current is just as good as AC for producing electric light, running a radio, etc. but for most existing household and agricultural machinery which was built for the national grid an expensive replacement of all motors is necessary. DC current does not require regulation of the turbine or wheel, but banks of storage batteries will be necessary. In producing AC the flow of water must be constantly controlled by some kind of cybernetic device. which is characteristically expensive. Flow regulation requires governors and complex valve shut·off devices costing more than turbine and generator combined. THE WATER AND THE POWER "Scientific cbJectlyity" has never ·en clearly divorced [roo the ruling ideolofO· of ita ti::le. as 111 illustrated by the adTiee ghen to the Cb,inen Duke ·ua."\ b the ·2nd or ·3rd century. TIle advlo:e V&8 given by h1.s prot·hydrologist and ·ecologist Kuan Chung. The subject is the "harmful influencea of vater". which turn out to be not 80 much harmful to people as ha.rm!·ul to their ruler: "It 18 in the nature of .... ater t:) now, but ..men it reaches & bend in ita channel It ill ·tarded. and when the bend is !·ull the water behInd pushes forward that which 19 ahead. "·b.ere the land elopes dovnvard it flovs alor.g s:noothly. but where it riaee. the vater 18 apeded. In IIcme places where the bank curvee the .... ater pounda up agaiMt it and crumbles it &....ay, in other sucn places the .... ahr becomes agitated and leaps up. When it leaps up it runs to one aIde. On running to one elde it forms whIrlpoole. After forming whirlpools It returns to i b central course. On returnL·1g to ita central course and slo·ing it deposits its silt. and yhe· this haa occured the channel beco·es obstructed. Obstruction le3ds to c±a.ng. of course. Char.ge or course brings fneh stoPF&ge. ThWII 1c·d· the ·ater ·s yild. Running yild it In·ures men. _ben 1· ir,jurea men there art1le8 great distress &:l1Ong them. In great distress t.·1ey treat the lays lightly. t.&.ys being treated lightly. it la difficult to mai·taln good order. r,ood order lapsin;. filial piety diaap·ara. Ani ·en people have lost (1:1a1 piety. they are no longer eubm1s81v· ••• " LOOK NO HANDS Converting the stream into a light·bulb can be done at maximum efficiency of 50,( not counting wire losses. Some direct applications of


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power from the wheel have been mentioned, but power can aleo be obtained for certain uses wi thout even a wheel. The spoon tilt·hammer is an example of direct use of a supply of running water delivered from a flume. It can be used as a forge hammer, or to drive a pump or other machinery requiring only partial rotary motion. The spoon tilt·hammer is a reversed ·"swape" or bucket·counterpoise as used to assist raising of water from a well. A modern tilt·hammer for pounding grain, rocke, etc. might be faahioned out of a car·axle and an oil·drum. Tbe "spoon" must be made to discharge its load. suddenly at the end of its run. Water can be raised with the energy of falling water by means of a hydraulic ram or more simply by a no ria. J noria wheel is driven by men or by animals if in still water. but may be driven by the force of the current j the water which it is lifting if it is provided with paddles. The axis of a self·driven noria can be used addition to perform "superhuman" work. In a water ·driven noria the paddles are placed radially and the buckets, pots. or bamboo tubes sealed at one end are fixed diagonally between paddles. Rorias can be Yery · up to 70ft. diameter for example in Syria, or even larger in the stAam·driYen norias of nineteenth centuJ Europe. The ship·mill is moored in a river current, and is an example of perhaps the most direct use of running wat, possible. No dam is required. The wheels are undersl and therefore not very high in efficiency. A modern ship·mill might be used as a laundry, paper·mill or Sl ·mill; a ready supply of running vater being at hand· support these processes. A similar device 18 a ferry which is tethered by a long rope from a point upstre· a capstan on board. The current rotates the paddle· .... h. .... hich in turn drive the capstan to pull the ferry ups Downstream traYel is by drifting with the current. REFERENCES T.A.L. Paton & J.G.Brown ·Power from Water· Leonard H London, 1961. H.W.Hamm ·Low Cost Deyelopment of Smal ·ater·Power Sites· VITA. New York, 1967. reY. 1971. G.H.Bateman ·A Bibliography of Low Cost ·ater Technol ITDG, London, 2nd. edn. 1971. J. Needham ·Science &D Clyilization in China· Vol. 4 part 2 sect.27, Camb. · Press, 1965. R.Bennett & J.Elton ·History of Corn·MJ 4 vols., orig. 1898 reprinted Burt Franklin, New Yor· CREDITS Taru Tyynila, Tony Lloyd·Jonea, AgitKrop. George Woolston, Katajanokankatu ·B10, Helsinki 16t Finland.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

35-39 Harper What’s Left Of Alternative Technology? THERE, THERE, I didn·t really mean it. But having accused ·alternative technology·of being hopelessly vague, incon·sistent, unworkable and reactionary, I expected a flood of devastating refuta·tions. None Came; or at least, I had a great number of ·stinging replies·but they were nearly all aimed at me and not the arguments. That worried me. Maybe I was right after all. Do I have to stop being devil·s advocate and go back to being God·s just to keep the game going? Maybe. But let me keep the horns and tail for a few paragraphs more. When you talk about alternative technology do people understand what you mean? On the whole, yes, in a rough and ready sort of way. There is a kind of smell to it which fudges over all the different aspects. But if you try to go further in explain·ing what it really means, say to someone who never heard about it before, you get into a muddle. There are so many bits and pieces. Is there a basic criterion? I·ve heard all the following suggested: Low environmental impact Low capital cost small scale simple practised outside established institutions unorthodox appropriate for self·reliant communities non·exploiting controllable by users nonviolent or non·miserable Now this is a funny old list. Technical arid physical properties, circumstances of use, miscellaneous good intentions .. a real rag·bag. But so what? Each one could be a perfectly satisfactory criterion for judging technical developments. The trouble is, no single one is the obviously correct criterion for ·A r. If it were, it would be simpler and more accurate to refer to ·Low·impact technology·, ·small·scale technology·etc; and we do sometimes do this. Still, we do persist in seeking a more general concept which embraces a number of these criteria. What seems to have been happening is that everyone picks a bunch of their favourites (or their un favourites if they·re against the whole idea) and calls it AT; and by what I might call the ·pun effect·we all think we are talking about the same thing. For all sorts of reasons we never really get down to sorting out what we really mean, so we never discover our differences. Maybe it doesn·t matter. After all,


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exactly the same thing has happened with the concept ·socialism·, and it happens in straight science too, and nobody seems to mind too much, or even to notice. My complaint is that I·m not happy with the general AT smell. It·s getting trendy and·how do you say?·bourgeois. Not healthy. So let me kick the old girl a little more. At the most superficial level, the indiv·idual criteria can be criticised as ambiguous or inconsistent. As I pointed out in the last Undercurrents, to replace central power plants with windmills substitutes one kind of environmental impact for another: to simply talk of ·Low Impact·leaves it uncertain which , kind we wish to minimise. Or another example: many devices Which are approved as being small·scale at the point of use require massive scale at the point of manufacture; what·s so special about use that doesn·t apply to the making? Or another: consider this quote from a recent paper on appro·priate technology: Suitable technology must be made simple again so that its functioning can be understood by the greatest number of people. Any clever fool can make things complicated; it requires a touch or genius to make them simple again. You see, simplicity is not so simple as people think! At another level,much technology which is claimed to satisfy certain criteria, just doesn·t. As I said in the previous article, self·sufficiency set·ups are nearly always ripping someone off. Low capital cost? Well, no; unless you are on social security and have time to scavenge, or can persuade some firm to give you the goods as a gimmick. These are criticisms ·from within·. But it seems to me that the more serious criticisms came from without·from the old·fashioned political Left: Most activity with the AT smell on it does not appeal to the interests of the majority of ordinary people; does not help bring about fundamental political change; and (and this is what most of this article is about) focusses on con·sumption rather than production. In other words, it·s a rather irrelevant pur·suit, from a radical point of view, it·s riddled with middle·class interpre·tations of environmental quality, of smallness of scale, of simplicity, of self·sufficiency, of low cost etc etc. Is this too strong? Test yourself with some of these snippets of correspond·ence that fell into the hands of the New Scientist recently: ·Dear Heavenly Father We were all absolutely thrilled to get your last letter. Of course you are absolutely right. The best things in life are free·the things you made for us to cherish and admire. In fact, we were so excited by the idea that we are going to cast aside all worldly things, like you said, and go and live


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according to your ways, in a lovely little group of farms down in Hereford that Simon has picked up for an absolute song. Simon is going to look after the pigs, and Rupert has drawn up a plan for an absolutely super loom. Diedre is going to make pots. Aubrey says he is going to learn the sitar, so we can all sit round in the evenings, but Simon says he should fashion himself a rude nose·flute. What do you think? We are all terribly excited, knowing we can have a super time and do your will all at once. , Yours affectionately, Adrian But to Adrian·s deep chagrin, the Al·mighty turns out to have other priorities: ·Dear Heavenly Father, We were all a little hurt by your last letter. We cannot help thinking that some of the points you made were a little secular. I really do not know whether the productivity of the farm has gone down since we took over. In any case, we haven·t got it going pro·perly yet. Rupert has drawn up plans for these glass domes, so we can grow fish. Simon says you only have to wee on them every day and they turn out much more nutritious than beef and Amanda used to have a thing going with a man at Pilkington·s, so we should pick up glass·at less than cost. Diedre says it was jolly rude of you to say her pots were "rotten". She says she can·t possibly get clay from Cornwall, as that would mean trading, and the whole point·is that we should be self·sufficient. And there is an absolutely sweet little man from the village who gets us all the seaweed we need, so you needn·t worry on that score. We thought it was a bit peevish of you frankly, to say that what we were doing isn·t any help. I mean, we are showing them the way. Once we make a go of it down here, they can all copy us. I know they can·t aI/live in Hereford, and I do agree it can be a little chill up in the Highlands, but Amanda says you can have a super time up there with all that heather and thingS, and anyway we were here first .... Apart from being extremely funny (you should read the rest, NS 20 December, 1973, p 853·854) and very much to the point, this highlights the idea that through all the jumble of goals and assumptions of people tinkering with technological alternatives there are two main blocs: ·those that think the system is bound for physical collapse; ·those that think the system is evil. Of course there’s no reason why you can’t think both, and that bias on my part will be evident throughout. But basically. there are those who worry about environment and resources, an d those who worry about alienation and exploitation. For convenience, let me create two Procrustean categories to reflect these


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emphases: Ecological Alternative Technology (EAT) and Radical Alternative Technology (RAT). I’m going to argue that both approaches have failed in theory and practice because they have neglected a large part of our lives and our technology, namely, basic production, which requires not so much alternative technology as alternative organisation, therefore alternative economics, therefore alter·native social expectations and institutions, therefore alternative politics, hearts, minds and eventually back round to wherever we started (to be sung to the tune of ‘Dialectics Blues’). Let me go into this a bit more. Our technology can be divided into two parts. To oversimplify, there is the domestic technology of the thing,> we consume directly: fires and boilers for heating, lamps for lighting, stoves for cooking, cars for travelling, televisions for watching Monty Python, and so on; and there is the technology of the mean\ needed to produce all these: steel mills, mines, assembly plants, research laboratories, tram,miners and so on. There is a continuous range of things in between, of course, but crudely speaking, there\ the technology·of consumption (TC) and the technology·of production (TP). ‘ AT’ of all kind, has focussed very heavily on the former, although we spend at least half OUI waking lives on the latter. The reason for this imbalance are interesting. An obvious one is that part of the purpose of small·scale self·reliant technology in both EAT and RAT camps !·as been tO,cut out the TP as a separate category and blend it with Te. Another reason is that small·scale types of AT do not lend themselves to a separate TP as it has developed: the very reason for taking TP out of the home and into the factory was to achieve economics of scale by concen·trating into big units; Related to this is that modern TP is very complex indeed and most AT freaks wouldn’t know how to even begin creating tech·nical alternatives, apart from closing the whole lot down. And another reason is that most AT folk <HC middle class, a large proportion of them superannuated student, (and I speak as one myself) whose only experience is TC as far as they arc concerned that is what tech·nology i\: they’ve never experienced the inside of ,I factory_ Over and over again, they forget that the materials for the windmills, the generators, the solar panels have to be mined, manufactured, assembled, transported etc before they even get to the site.


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(Check this out: make a list of the cliches of AT: methane digestors, solar collectors, water turbines; wind generators, clivus units, water purifiers, heat pumps, domes, bicycles, insulation etc. They may well reduce the level of production technology needed (although this has to be demonstrated in each case) but unless complete self-sufficiency is achieved, the question of production is one which must be answered unless you think there’s nothing wrong with the ‘Adrian’ syndrome). All this is certainly true among the eco·freaks, but paradoxically often true also of the radicals. In Stefa·Szclelkun\ latest (and mind·blowing) Survival Scrapbook on energy it says: ‘Criteria for selecting information: 1. That it should be able to be used and controlled, on all levels, by individuals and small communities. Small scale. Decentralized. 2. Able to be used maintained and con·structed by amateurs. Specialist know·how demystified. 3. Makes use of local or commonly avail·able resources whenever possible. 4. Poetic rather than banally convenient. 5. Of use to those who actively confront the inadequacy of our present state’. Actually, that’s the finest RAT list I’ve ever seen. Notice there’s not a word about ecology. But, except for a hint in No 5, neither is there a word about the reorganisation of production of insula·tion materials, thermoelectric Devices, solar fridges, generators, water pipes, gas heaters, air drills, heat pumps, steam engines. all of which are found in the pages of the book. Now comes a rather nasty difficulty. It’s relatively easy to create consump·tion·alternatives because we have fairly direct control over the technology of consumption (although few of us may exercise it). Creating alternatives in the sphere of production is not so easy because it’s such a social thing, far beyond the control of most individuals (which is largely what’s wrong with it anyway) and it therefore requires ma,>s, scale political action to change. Must we then wait till After the Revolution? That is indeed a possible strategy, and frequently hawked in the High Street on Saturday afternoons, but personally I think it’s like waiting for Godot, or the apocalypse, or the next issue of Undercurrents. (You’re fired again!·Ed). ‘The trouble is that what’s wrong is in two parts: part of it is the way the


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world is, and part of it is the way we are. Not only that, but neither part is the way it is by accident, nor i\ it free to be different on its own. The way we are is fixed by the <;;structure, and the structure iii fixed by the way we arc’. ... known in the trade, I’m told, a,> the defeating logic of the dialectic. The problem IS, how to get our fingers in the crack. My thesis which I shall expand in the next article (this is getting ridiculous is that ‘premature’ attempts to create alternative social, economic and technical, organisation for production can con·tribute in a significant way to the achievement of political conditions that will finally allow them to be fully implemented. This is by no means the only part of the strategy, but I think it’s a vital one. Next problem. What kind of alternative society/economy/technology do we want? I’ve already argued that at least in the sphere of technology the Ie of agreement on what we want ., rather poor, and that we will have to sort out least roughly where we’re going. And of course the same is true of economy and society, for much the same reason I find it helpful to divide the problem up into a theoretical bit (what do we ideally want?) and a practical bit (what do we do now). This article mainly concentrates on the theoretical stuff because I think it clears the head (well sometimes). Once again for space reasons I defer the living :strategy to the neXt issue. To illustrate some of the possibilities, I shall use the three paradigm societies imagined by the Goodmans in their celebrated Communitas, written in 1947. Each of the three different type is perfectly rational and just. They could be socialist societies in which arbitrary privilege and economic com·petition had di,>appeared. I have corrupted the Goodmans’ three types by casting them in the form of some diagrams of my own. They. reduce the whole issue to three ques·tions: how long do you work? how enjoyable is work? And how enjoyable is not·working? I assume that each type is equally rational, that is, the total enjoyment is the same for each. Type I puts a high value on consumption. The 16 hour waking day is divided exactly in half: 8 hours work, 8 hours not·work (ie productive and non·produc·tive periods). In order to produce the quantity of goods desired for consump·tion during the leisure period, efficient industrial methods of production are used and work in them is not very pleasant. Let’s say for the sake of argument that the ratio of the work satisfaction to the leisure satisfaction is 3:7. Work is rotten but leisure is great because there are lots of goodies. Type II puts a high value on work·satisfaction. or as the Goodmans put it, the abolition of the distinction between production and consumption. We can imagine a kind of craft system of produc·tion working on a very small scale. Work would be much more enjoyable, but even if you worked for a very long time, output would still be very low: not many goodies. In fact


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work is just about as enjoyable as leisure, as if you were doing a hobby all the time, and the distinction is virtually lost: Type III puts a high value on leisure itself (ie free time not tied to productive disciplines). You could have an arrange·ment such that working flat out on highly efficient production systems, just producing the bare necessities, could enable you to spend a very long period not working. The work period may be nasty and brutish, but certainly short. The Goodmans worked out that in 1940 only one fifth of total work time in the American economy was involved in producing necessities. :\another aspect they emphasised was maximum security. Everyone would be guaranteed the basic necessities. These are just three among many possible schemes, although they do represent some fundamental alternatives. There are lots of questions to ask which I haven’t space to go into: is it really possible to organise these patterns? How do they evolve beyond that state? Can we organise things so that everyone can choose the pattern they prefer, or in a ‘modern society’ do we have to make a restricted collective choice?

PLAY (plus WORK) (Type 111) PLAY/WORK (Type II) Work

Progressive abolition of work, leading Progressive pervasion of (reduced) ‘work’

to ‘pure’ spontaneity, ‘pure’ creativity, by play. Expressive/instrumental com·

and expressivity. ‘pure’ relating ponents in behaviour difficult to separ·ate. A Question of relative emphasis on play or work side. Affective together·ness rooted in common being. Technology

100% automation as rapidly as Optimal automation involves consist·

possible. Liberation by technology eney with desired scale of operations,

from technology. Means plus ends. conformity with ecological niche, etc. Means/End. Unification Scale

Totally articulated techno·political Only partial integrations to preserve

system. ‘Global Village’. World systematic redundancy (ie richness of


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culture. World democracy. alternatives). Integration through diversity. Many different appropriate scales. Loose world federation. Representative thinkers

McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, William Morris, Paul Goodman, Norman Brown Murray Bookchin.

It seems to me that Type 1 is rough·ly what we’ve got now, although of course it is not justly instituted. Some people are trapped in the Type I scene, involuntarily subsidising others. Part of my concern about middle class AT freaks is that their type II or type III ideals are subsidised by ripping off type 1’ers: Type I may of course be Impossible in the long term for ecological and resource reasons, but in any case Type II and Type III are favoured by the non·consumerist ethic of the ‘movement’, and especially type II. The Goodmans liked Type II best, I like Type II, and I expect many Undercurrents readers will like it. Why? I don’t know. Something to do with attitudes to work and play?·nicely caught in this table by Keith Paton: The trouble about type II is that not everybody fancies it, to say the least, and a single system of that type wouldn’t allow people much choice._ At least this much can be said for type III: a quarter of your time, how·ever distributed over your day, week, year, life, would be enough to keep you alive. The rest of the time you would be free to do type 11 work or even type I work, as long as you didn’t annoy every·one with your noxious emissions or whatever. This seems to be an attractive scheme. Question is, what are necessities? How much time should be spent in providing them? How much can be managed locally, region·ally, nationally? To illustrate some of the alternatives, we need to compare some possible ‘AT’ societies at different scales. Obviously there is going to be a profound difference between neo·“ primitive alternative technology socie·ties which take all the slogans about self·sufficiency literally, and more sophisticated ones that may have the same slogans but don’t really mean it. Real neo·primitivists are rather rare, but there are a few. Here are some sample quotes from an interview with Philippe Arreteau who has got perhaps as near as anyone: ‘Soft technology is by no means novel; man has used it for thousands of years without realising it, without defining it, because that is all he knew. What has made soft technology signif·icant is the ‘hard’ technology weigh·ing us down and drowning us in the industrial society’. ... we should make a distinction between: soft technology used by the ‘fringe types’, technology which is not very original technically speaking, but which is ‘soft’ because of the way they use it; and soft technology with·in the established culture which \“,‘ill


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become (technically) very sophistica·ted but not at all ‘soft’ because it is meant only to extend current technology’. It is certainly true that soft techno·logy means giving up some facilities, even comfort to a certain extent’. This is essentially a non·industrial tech·nology. ln his view, any technical alter·natives which do exploit recent advances risk ‘falling into the trap of perfection·ism, and reinventing (without realising it) the very universe we wish to flee’. I call this variety of AT simple AT (SAT). Ivan Illich’s writings often seem to point in this direction although they don’t go quite so far. IIlich seems to share with Arreteau a sense of the aesthetic or spiritual advantages of the simple life·his phrase is ‘a conscious politics of austerity’ an idea with some very beautiful precedents:Now, my co·mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these words More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The seasons’ difference; as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter wind Which, when it bites and blows, upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, ‘This is no flattery: These are courseless That feelingly persuade me what I am’.

Sweet are the uses of adversity Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel, in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing I would not change it. This may or may not be as you like it, but beside it the ‘orthodox’ AT of the gadget cliches (windmills and all that) seems somewhat vulgar. I’ll call this latter complicated AT (CAT) because it often is fairly complex in operation. and certainly tends to require some pretty fancy engineering back in Birmingham, not to mention mining in the Rhondda or the Zambian copper belt. It requires industrial organisation of production on a completely different scale from simple AT. I won’t say any more about it as it should be familiar.


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Finally there is another category which can hardly be regarded as ‘alter·native’ but which is growing in import·ance, and that is the massive application of some of the basic ideas by the establish·ment. Here is the text of an advertisement which has been appearing in British newspapers recently: . .HOW TO MAKE THE BEST USE OF ENERGY ON EARTH Today, our urgent need is not simply to improve physical conditions. Like the astronaut in his space ship, we need to attain the highest level of internal environmental control, with the smallest possible demands on energy resources. Today, in our buildings at least, a new design concept is helping us achieve this priority, not only for the short term, but to long term advantage. Its name is lED·short for Integrated Environmental Design. A new concept in building design which not only provides a physically better working environment. but creates these conditions by making better use of energy. Conserving Energy. This means mak·ing the most of available building materials and methods. Better insula·tion to reduce heat loss and solar gain (sic). Air conditioning which not only provides the accepted benefits, but acts as the heat or cooling dis·tribution system. Overall design which can harness the heat given off from office machinery and the people in the building ... Iighting which increases the efficiency of the occupants and, by integration with daylight, can lower capital cost by ‘deep’ building. . .It has a sinister ring about It, t we have to ask what exactly is the case against better insulation. multiple use of various systems, using people heat, and cutting down on windows (which is what ‘deep building’ means)? I leave it to you to muse on the implications. This of course is just the beginning. I call it Mega·AT (MAT). So now we have three levels of application of certain AT principles: SAT; CAT; MAT, and I’m sorry if the sequence is mnemonically confusing. Supposing whole societies were to take them seriously and adopt them widely. What would those societies be like? What things and patterns and institutions would you have around you? I’ll take two examples, one at a scale somewhere between SAT and CAT; and the other somewhere between CAT and MAr; I’m trying to show the interaction of technical, economical and social factors. CASE A (between SAT and CAT) could b< forced on us if we completely tailed to find alternative sources of concentrated energy once fossil fuels have run out. A kind of lucky dip as they come into my head: building with rammed earth C\and other vernacular materials; self·building in collectives; small windows; shared dwellings; woolly clothes for winter; small quantities of crucial industrial products such as steel tools, ball bearings, chemicals, glass, certain plastics etc; vigorous local life·little long·distance travelling;


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bicycles; very few cars; a certain amount of animal·powered transport; sailing ships; canals; mails and some telephone; an emphasis on preventive medicine, but with various basic drugs and anaesthetics; more paramedicals. fewer full·time doctors; certain ‘natural’ restrictions on medical attention (some diseases could not be treated); ‘organic’ gardening and farm·ing; strong emphasis on recycling manures, composting etc; severe restrictions on meat·eating; much more time spent on food production and other primary and secondary work, less on services and administration (most of these functions would presum·ably revert to the community); kids and old people working more; longer work·hours; less rigid specialisations; education mostly in connection with work; less ‘culture’ in the commodity sense; simple solar collectors, such as passive solar walls; smallish wind devices; water wheels; string·and·sealing wax R&D; no super·technology sector; fairly crude, low·tolerance, general·purpose. long·lasting machines made of standard parts; general acceptance of breakdowns and malfunctions; adapta·tions of life·patterns to prevailing environmental conditions; low levels of ‘comfort’ or at least ‘convenience’; great attention to personal relationships and to the ‘inner life’: a lot of head trips; unorthodox low·capital forms of useful knowledge (dowsing, acupuncture astrological birth control etc); regional I economies; frugality as a kind of life·game; ETC ..... This would be fine for quite a lot of people, but it would take some getting ‘used to if YOU were born in an affluent society, and I doubt if you could win a general election on it. CASE B , somewhere between CAT and MAT, might be achieved by a pragmatic, ecologically conscious, anti·imperialist socialist society fully confident in its technological capacity but not obsessed with advanced tech·nology. Again, as it comes into my head: Large and small·scale sun, wind, walt:r, geothermal etc, energy usage; collective digestion of all organic wastes for methane; total energy systems and district heating; heat pump hydrogen and methanol as basic fuels; I central electricity ,generation from man·different sources with local grids; fuel I cells; controlled exploitation of abun·dant resources; advanced autonomous houses outside the cities. mostly of large size; all the main industrial materials, although not in overwhelm·ing abundance; wide range of special I steels and plastics; semi·conductors and electronic bric·a·brac; some com·puters, radio, telly etc; much automa·tion in tedious production jobs; litho presses; ‘proper’ R&D; knowledge fir. Iy based on the traditional sciences; I tractors; combines etc; machines for capital·intensive organic farming; more·even distribution of population; many more in part·time food production; health foods and mass food distribu·tion; some meat; trains; public transport dirigibles; few planes; some long·distant travel but less commuting; strong con·trols on


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environmentally harmful sub·stances; very strict emission standards; less mining, with improved work con·ditions; controlled distribution of raw materials; careful conservation programme; equipment designed for reliability, ease of repair, long life, and recycling of components; smaller range of consumer goods; wider range of living patterns, and possibilities) for greater variety within a person’s life; life·long education·and·work; regional emphasis within a national and inter·national economy; ETC; . Some comments on these: A basic difference between them is the balance of autonomy and collectivity. This is a dimension which we’ll have to think about a great deal. It’s good to share things, but how far can you go before an important measure of control is lost·Some things are better collectivised: even builders of autonomous houses tend to approve of public transport; collective water·treatment, methane production etc is obviously sensible for sufficiently large groups of people. We gotta be flexible. Both cases have the ‘problem’ of deciding how much effort to put into industrial production, and how to allocate industrial and other types of work, but this is a much bigger issue for the second case, since basic industry is far more collective. In case A regional disparities might cause trouble with flows of goods and population, as well as the hoped·for pleasing diversity. Case B would be much more secure, and would allow more of its own kind of diversity. Its higher productivity. would permit lighter work on average, and much more time to go into volun·tary manufacture of consumer goods (perhaps with their own type of money to avoid contaminating the basic necessity part of the economy) or to craft work of the Goodman type II variety. People would be essentially free to organise their own economic life patterns, individually or in groups, Job·rotation (mental·manual, industrial·agricultural, urban·rural) would probably be more feasible in case B. Whatever the balance of ·centralised·industrial production to local produc·tion (10;90, 50;50 or whatever) it is important to consider what should be produced and how. Currently nearly everything is made ·centrally·and distributed nationally. It might be better to produce only the basic pro·ducer goods centrally, and then distribute the means for creating consumer items to regions and localities so they can make what they decide they want. There should be centralised production of a basic inventory of several 1000 standard general parts, very cheap, from which things can be assembled locally as needed. All kids would play with these as they grow up, and they would be the mechanical basis of the local com·munity·s technology. Where have we got to? I·ve tried to show that·AT·is a concept without a clear meaning: There are lots of people going in different directions but thinking they·re marching shoulder to shoulder. The technical realisation


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of the typical ·AT·ideals is problematic even in their own terms. And in terms of wider radical ideals, typical ·AT·activity does not help the struggle for a more humane and fulfilling society. I would like to see the emphasis shifted or at least the centre of gravity, from technique (gadgets) to organisation; from ecological considera·tions to socialist) ones; from consump·tion to production, I·ve even thought of a slogan: From The Technology Of Con·Sumption To The Organisation Of Production I don·t want to imply that there·s no technical work to be done. There·s plenty, and what we·ve done is not wast·ed. But it must be integrated into the rest of the (?) strategy·politics, econom·ics, social organisation, life, love, poetry .. Somebody wrote to me after the last article ·it·s not necessary to talk about what it will be like; (it won·t be anyway)·. I sympathise, but I think ranging shots are useful if only as a first check that where we·re going is really worth it, and to rouse the juices of the imagination. But of course all that Utopian theoretical bullshit has used up the space again and I haven·t got round to what I was really supposed to talk about: Utopianism as a dialectic·smashing strategy·the art of behaving as if the revolution has already happened, and getting away with it. Sigh. Maybe next time? Peter Harper.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Watts : Where·s your sense of tumour?ALTERNATIVE CANCER RESEARCH is nothing to do with wind pumps, water power, solar energy or recycling technology. You can·t do it in your kitchen·let alone the back garden·and most of the people working on it would probably refute the term ·alternative·, They would see it as nothing more than a logical step forward. And so it is·but an especially important one. The poor results of most early attempts to hack tumours out with the scalpel, or batter them into submission with X·rays, forced clinicians and biologists to face up to their total ignorance of cancer. They began to wonder how the process started, and what if anything cause·d it. As more bits and pieces of information emerged, interest and enthusiasm grew. The cancer research epic was launched. Efforts have been fruitful (superficially, at least) and the list of known carcinogens continues to grow, This list, however, has been viewed largely as a register of ·things·: things which cause cancer. Now a whole new stream of thought is beginning for the first time to be taken seriously: the notion that at least some cancers may be influenced by the sufferer·s state of mind, might perhaps even be a direct result of it. In other words, cancer as a reflection of the way we live. There·s nothing new about the notion of psychosomatic illness: we·ve been connecting stress and ulcers for years. But such ideas have never been popular with the cancer researchers. Indeed, they·re hardly widespread now·but they are beginning to become respectable. The Faith Courtauld Research Unit at King·s College Hospital Medical School is a case in point. The unit is now in its third year of a study aimed at un·ravelling the psychobiology of breast cancer. The staff are trying to construct a complete picture of a series of women suffering from the disease: not just their physical, but their mental condition as well. In the words of one of the group, ·We want to find out exactly how the patient·s biology, especially her hormones and immune responses, interact with psychology in the origin and development of her illness. For example, could stress be playing a part in its origin? ·The division between mind and body must be broken·, the group insist. ·It·s quite possible that psychosocial factors contribute to cancer, but up till now that possibility has been largely ignored·, The various enthusiasts for research in this field have even come together in an organisation with the rather mouthy name of the European Working Group for Psychsomatic Cancer Research, EUPSYCA for short. This worthy body held its second seminar last October (on ·psycho·biologic, psychosomatic and sociosomatic aspects of neoplastic disease·) in an appropriately obscure region of Slovenia, Yugoslavia. Some of the subjects covered


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were, to put it mildly, intriguing. How about ·Studies on the effect of meteorological stresses on cancer·, ·Schizophrenia and malignancy· or ·Rorschach (ink blot test) investigations in ovarian and cervix cancer patients·, Then again there was ·Spontaneous paintings as an expression of the total personality with specific reference to malignant tumours· and ·The role of aggression in neoplastic disease·. You see, it all plays a part·from art to the state of the weather. The psychobiologists obviously appreciate that they may yet be in for a rough ride at the hands of their less open·minded colleagues: witness one of the conference sessions pompously but accurately·entitled ·Professional and popular resistance against the psychosomatic cancer concept·, Perhaps the funniest thing about this::. ·new· way of looking at cancer i· the<1t the thirties (?) poet WH Auden wrote a poem call·ed Miss Gee. The ballad of Edith Gee tells of a lonely frustrated woman who discovers she has a tumour·which finally kills her. The story includes the follow·ing three perceptive verses:

Doctor Thomas sat over his dinner, Though his wife was waiting to ring, Rolling his bread into pellets; Said, 'Cancer is a funny thing. ·Nobody knows what the cause is, Though some pretend they do; It·s like some hidden assassin Waiting to strike at you, ·Childless women get it, And men when they retire, It·s as if there had to be some outlet For their foiled creative fire·.

If the researchers read more poetry, they might discover all sorts of thing)·


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

40-40 AgitkropNot corrected.Alternative technologists everywhere, positively reeling from the shock, retire in numbed silence to contemplate the ruins of their world as the full implications of Peter Harper·s bombshell in the last issue of undercurrents dawn upon them. The whole movement 1s in disarray. String and paper dangle forlornly from the limp arms of deserted wlnd·mills and old bicycle parts lie discarded, thrust back once more onto the rusting scrap heap from which they were salvaged with the promise of a role in the brave new small·scale world of the future. And what of those budding low technology commercial enterprises that have emerged recently with the perfect formula for painless profits? No doubt business confidence will severely shaken as e result of this atrocious publicity. 1:be :fashionable fetish of alternative technology h in the process of evaporating, even as the few practical projects it engendered get off the ground. The little box of technologi·cal tricks with _which alone it set out to cure all our 111s has proved to be yet one core diversionary performance in the infinite repertoire of the Spectacular.Society · a vehicle of revolutionary change with DO motive force or, as the soft technologists would undoubtedly prefer it, a cart without a horse: A Revolutionary Proclamation ·The Great wave of middle·class Ecological Concern is now submerged in the dust cloud of hysteria thrown·up by the "energy crisis". the wild beast of World Capitalism, gnashing its teeth, turns with the utmost venom upon the gallant little band of doom·merchants whom it not so long ego tolerated with benevolent contempt. Now, as the beast rampages,g<!s, they are to be found cowering in the security of their aca·declc ivory towers. Xot a word do they say, except to off·r their meagre contributions to the insane and frantic scre·ple for instant panaceas to pro·lems with roots that lie deep in ,the heart of industri·l society. Out"·8I·d1y the :·:a.sters of the ·.orld display a brave facade of calm nonchalance. Inwardly they tremble in their fear of the unknown. Froo us they will receive no ·WOrds of cor:d·ort. .....E proclai·: Gen·emen, the foundations of your ·y are crucbling. .e shall not hel? you recover your tooting. On the contrary, we a.1.l:I to be there to deliver "·the dell.ti!. blo .... s when your machinery of repression grinds and clanks to a standstill, when the industrial ¥·loch that you have crea·ed comes crashing .do· on


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your heads: The Gen·alorv of tte ··atecr·ical ·on·ter ·e struggle to liberate tte ·hole of nature from the yoke of.8 ·ignant tecbocracy; fro:n a cancerous technology con·eived in the incestuous union of the infant prodigy cap"taJ.1sc ana its doting ::!lother, "the imperialist·monarchist state; a technology su·jec"t to ·u1tuous growth in its ·ancy, force·fed by the myriad, de·tr·ct1ve, conflicting forces of injivid·a1 greed released by the Rfree·entreprise" systet:l; a technology \o .. hicb bas corr.e to its gargantuan and ever ::lore horrifying lDaturi·y III 1:.be age of Monopoly Capital. The Cri·inal Erosion of Hu·anity Said Engels, ·anting to abolish authority in large industry is tantacount to ·anting to abolish industry itself.· To Herr Engels,were te still around to·aYtwe would reply, risking his incredulity: Precisely! Large·scale industry has indeed to be abolished. Industrial technology shapes working people in its own imagp.·fraemented, ·echanical beings. pavlovian subjects for comcodity kings and "proletarian" princes. The production and consumption of industrial products is the heroin of the masses. Each successive dose of the commodity culture has to be greater to achieve the sa·e meagre effect. Technology is refined and refined. until" its destructive capacity is ab·olute. The addicts can hope for little except ·or an ·arly and sudden end to their suffering · a catastrophic termination of a lingering mass suicide. Or will they turn on their tormenters, crush the pushers, and tear their instru·ents of torture ·o pi·es? ·e ai· to turn this lliccer into a spark, and the s?ar· into a revolutionary conflagration in a fociety ·hich is already wretching in its o·n decocposition. The Political Econo·y of Putrescence Th· voluminous flo .... of filth and poison froc the industrial vorld into the natural is only to be matched by the flow of lies from the rancid mouths of politicians and businessnen and their paid cronies in the .... orld of science; lies which Justify a technology conceived of by a voracious, power·crazed clique as a means whereby its domination could be cade absolute. Their reign of terror has been ·asked by the high·soundinb ai·s of econo·ic growth and material ·rosperrty for all. And even when thr. capitalist masters .... ere usurped by their "proletarien" counterparts, the latter offered even more outragous pronises and j·Jstifications for the continuing slavery of the people. The machinerJ of repression was r.ot dismantled ·d power merely passed into the hands of a new clique. Fantasy of the R·8l World


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·e declare that the liberation of the human imagination for which artists have strived for thousands of years of Reivllized" human history can be achieved through the simple expediency of freeing nature. Fantasy can stretch no further than the strange luminous creatures that inhabit the deepest and most mysterious reaches of the ocean. There is no greater beauty than is to be found in the lithe forms of the great cats whose skins, ripped from freshly slaughtered carcasses, serve to mask the bulging flesh of capitalists· and commisars· wives. The Absurdity of Property As we fight to free the natural world we struggle to realiz the natural in man. Man is a social being. He seeks and needs the community of others. Thus .... e strive for communism as the only state of existence in which can be freely himself. Bu· the .... orld does not belong to communities of men, or even to the human species, any more than it belongs to anyone individual. The blind abuse of nature in the name of property spells death for all the natural communities of the biosphere and ultimately for man himself. It is to these natural coe·munities .... hich comprise many different species that the .... orld ·belongs". Hence we struggle for a new universal communism in which men may realize their full potential of development in mutually beneficial relationships with each other and with all other organisms that inhabit the earth. The Locus of Freedom We declare that all po·er · political, economic, physical _ must pass into the hands of the people, without the inter·position of self·elected RrepresentativesR and intermediaries. ·e state categorically that the diffusion of one kind of power depends entirely on the diffusion of all others. There can be no half measures · the political chara·e of parlia·en_ tary de·ocracy with the slavery of capitalism, socialise degenerated into state capitalism in the service of an omni·potent bureaucracy. Freedom is absolute and total or there is no freedom. If a society is nominally free in all respect· but is dependant on concentrated energy sources, the latter will be a vehicle for the abuse of freedom and its ultimate disruption. Hence the new economy that is asse·bled frem the ruins of the old will use energy that is everywhere, the end·less, non·polluting, freely available energy of the sun, water the ·ind, and plants. We announce that finally and irrevocably the era of mechanical tyranny is about to give way to the era of organic freedom. and we declare that we shall do our utmost to hasten this change and set about creating a truly free. classless human society with an ecologically secure, biotechnical foundation.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

41-42 Browning Science Fiction .. the Art of the Possible It is in the nature of sf that it comments either overtly or by implication on our present world, and the course that it may take in the future. I feel sf is not concern·ed mainly with science, it is concerned with entertainment, social comment and people. Even the classic ·hard· sf of writers such as Asimov is not read for its scientific content, but for other reasons: Asimov·s famous Foundation trilogy is a rewrite of Spengler on a galactic scale. His other books are ex·cellent detective stories, put together with science that is inconsistent and used as gadgetry for the characters to exploit. Leaving aside a lot of sf·far futures, ·space opera· and so on·I want to consider mainly the near future: how do· authors see the patterns of society alter·ing in the next few hundred years? What resolutions of the problems that face us today are envisaged? Population, pollu·tion, resource use, atomic warfare, violence and many other themes are reflected, changed, and distorted in the mirrors of sf, the mirrors of the possible futures. And what role does science play in all this? To many writers, science is a tool to allow their characters room to act in new situations, to extrapolate human behaviour in imagined futures. Take Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad. Here is a novel where the pro·tagonist is made immortal by a process whose nature he does not know, but which is under control of a megalo·maniac millionaire. As the nature of the process unfolds and he finds out how he was made immortal (a nasty opera·tion involving lingering death for a child) so the moral conflict becomes apparent, and the new choices and situations available throw the relation·ship between the characters into high relief. However, this calculated use of small amounts of scientific extrapola·tion to create a new and valid situation is not the only way science is used in sf. At another extreme of sf (and there are several) lies the use of science as a gadget·provider in games of interstellar cops and robbers, or more often, as with Poul Anderson·s last few novels, interstellar capitalism and colonialism with the ·good· guys trading with and ripping off everyone they meet. Usually in this type of book it is only the supposed benefits of capitalism that are allowed to appear. Which brings me to another point: who do sf authors portray in their work? The two extremes are: 1) a small group of people, in powerful positions, in their world, having adventures unrelated to the rest of the world; and 2) people related to, and put in the perspective


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of, the total society portrayed. The important question is whether or.not the author·s creation is self·consistent. In the socially unrelated category I put much of Heinlein, Anderson and Frank Herbert (e.g. Dune) and most space·opera man·saves·the·universe stories. In the second group are those which do present a total view of the author·s world, where the characters can be seen in relation to society, rather than in chauvinistic isolation. This is not to say that valid and telling sf cannot be written without relation to the whole of the human society at that time, but that many authors deliberately ignore issues that are central to the working of the vision they are trying to capture. Many short stories, e.g. The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, deal with a type of situation that could arise anytime, and bring out the human reactions to the situation; other stories and novels such as Robert Heinlein·s Starship Troopers present the reader with characters whose world is a fait accompli, and consider the adventures of one group from one class without relating this to the rest of the society portrayed. It is worth discussing Heinlein for a while, as he is one of the most influential of the old guard of sf writers, has written a book, Stranger in a Strange Land, that has sold more copies than any other sf novel, and writes from a right·wing if not fascist viewpoint. ·Starship Troopers· won a Hugo award as the best sf novel of 1959. It portrays an earth fighting against an external enemy ·the Bugs· who cannot be communicated with. The worlds under earth·s influence, where not under a benevolent martial law, are run on a democratic capitalist system, with voting limited to those who have served in the armed forces for two years. Flogging and hanging are civil punishments and glorious death is rife in the army. This fascist set up is justified, in the words of the hero·s tutor in Moral Philosophy ... because it works·. Now the hero is an upper middle class lad (house, swim·ming pool, father·s firm, shares etc) who . joins the army and likes it. He trains, fights, talks, and gives his view of militar·ism as not only a necessary, but also a desirable way of life. Militarism is justified also by ·the Bugs··the main reason for there being a huge army. A friend of mine on reading this book said he could now see what attracted people to fascism. To return to the original point: at no time in this book does Heinlein relate to the whole of society·action revolves around the army, the training camp, and an upper·middle class household and friends. To me this is a distortion of his possible future. Having set up the situa·tion he loads his characters to give a picture in which the values of fascism seem natural: no space is given to any who might have disagreed with the system, the social implications of capital·ism are ignored, and the highest aim of science is given as provision of better weapons.


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From the distortions of Heinlein let me turn to those who have at least attempted to present a total picture of a future society and relate their charac·ters to it. Much of the best in sf results from the author·s skill in setting up a possible future world and following its rules to produce relevant human situations, rather than the gadget surprise·ending story. That is, the restrictions of the future society are seen to be operating on the characters. One set of near·future novels are the post·atomic war stories. Here a change so dramatic has happened that the result·ing situations have varied enormously. Classics include The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, the film Dr Strangelove and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. This last is particularly interesting. After the war most knowledge has been lost, science is in disrepute, and a few monks carryon the traditions of knowledge against the general trend; eventually science is brought back into use. This book considers in detail many of the moral issues resulting from the use of science· and the mystifications surround·ing it. . More interesting still are works con·sidering the near future where there has been no cataclysmic disaster. These deserve a fuller discussion, but to men·tion some briefly: Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. Here science is seen as im·potent against the massive rise in population; all life has become narrow, enclosed and basic. Now filmed as Soylent Green. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. The title comes from the estimate that in the year 2010, to give each person in the world 1 sq ft of space, an area the size of the island of Zanzibar would be needed. The book features the computer Shalmaneser, the nearest man has got to artificial consciousness, and gives a horrifying view of a future military brainwashing technique used to make a man an efficient killer. The treatment of these and other themes in this very long book (Y< million words) brings out perhaps the most total picture yet attempted of a near future: the effects of pollution, mystification of science, specialisation, military abuse of science, capitalism, and especially overpopula·tion arc related to characters at many levels of this vision of 40 years ahead. Camp Concentration by Tom Disch. A variant of syphilis is discovered which increases human intelligence at an increasing rate after infection, but causes gradual breakdown and death of the very intelligent subject after some nine months. In a military con·frontation situation the army gains con·trol and infects some conscientious objectors and military criminals. The debates on the nature of science and the way science drastically affects this future society make the book well worth reading. In short, some of the best science fiction not only considers in a tangen·tial but radical · the moral issues rais·ed by science in our present


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society, but also by extrapolation probes many situations that have not yet occurred but which do have some bearing on the way we think of science. Gavin Browning

• SCIENCE FICTION COMPETITION Undercurrents wants you to write a science fiction story of less than 2000 words. Don·t feel limited by the ·science fiction· label. Contract it to ·sf· and then expand to science fantasy, specu·lative fiction, science fiction, or what·ever label suits best what you arc writing. Give us an sf story that Under· currents readers might like, and that you want to produce. The short stories will be judged by Michael Moorcock, and a £10 prize (it·s all we call afford at the moment!) will be given to the author of the best story, which w:1I be published in the next Undercurrents. Please limit the stories to 2,000 words for magazine ,>space reasons: Entries to Undercurrents at 275 Finchley Road, London, NW3 by April 6th, 1974.


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

43·50 REVIEWS Dark side of the Mind STAN GOOCH reviewed by COLIN WILSON TOWARDS THE END of his immense book Total Man (Allen Lane), Stan Gooch has an interesting confession that throws new light on the whole thing: 'When I myself experienced the full mediumistic trance for the first time, the subjective concomitants were, in this order, a wind rushing through the head, a sense of being engulfed by something, with awareness dwindling rapidly to a pinpoint, followed by unconsciousness. The onset of the condition was very sudden, giving the impression of some (damming) barrier having been broken through'. Apart from this tantalising fragment, we learn nothing more of Stan Gooch's personal experience of 'the dark side of the mind'. But it it enough to account for his obsessional interest in the subconscious. It must be a weird experience to have yourself 'taken over' by something alien. And that is the starting point of Total Man·Dracula, Faust, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, all the legends of demonic possession that run through world mythology. It's amazing that he managed to miss Sheridan Le Fanu's Green Tea, in which the hero is " possessed by a demon in the form of a :. monkey which inhabits his brain. Because this is basically his thesis: that the home of the demons and vampires is a part of the brain·man's 'old brain', the cerebellum. In the course of his evolution, man has developed the 'new brain', the cerebrum·what you might call 'the daylight brain'. He identifies himself with this daylight brain; in fact, as far as he is concerned, it;s 'himself'. Stan Gooch flatly denies this. It is only the 'ego'. The true self is something darker and deeper, a part of the old brain. Before I go any further, let me state clearly that Total Man is not a study in demonic possession or the occult. It is intended as a serious contribution to ..modern depth psychology, and it has all the correct academic apparatus of foot· notes, diagrams and pages of bibliography. But you only have to read a dozen pages to see that the academic apparatus is definitely misleading. Although this is supposed to be a trea·tise, it inhabits the same world as Dracula or The Lord of the Rings or ,.: Wagner's Ring cycle: You feel it ought· to be printed on green·tinted paper, the romantic half·light of the world of the hidden gods. It is the kind of book that could easily become a cult, and I imagine Stan Gooch will find himself a·cult figure before long. The thesis is certainly challenging enough. My only criticism is that it is presented in a somewhat back·to·front way, and he doesn't present his argument about


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the 'two selves' until page 162. Let me try to outline it in a more reasonable order. We may start from a generally accepted fact: that around 35,000 years ago, the human ancestor known as Neanderthal man suddenly disappear·ed:No one knows why. But he was {replaced by 'modern man', Cro·Magnon .man. No'one is certain where he came from either, although the Middle East has been suggested. (Recent archaeolog·ical finds in Korea indicate that civilisation occurred there earlier than in the Middle East). Wherever he came from, Cro·Magnon man decided he didn't want to share Europe with this barrel·chested, ape·like being, and he proceeded to use his skill with tools and weapons to systematically eliminate his rival·a kind of Nazi pogrom. But since he probably regarded Neanderthal woman as a 'good fuck', there must have been a certain intermingling of the races. (Readers who are twitching irritably at my use of 'probably' and 'must' should note that I am importing them from Stan Gooch's argument, which is often unashamedly speculative). The skull of ". _ Neanderthal man indicates that his 'upper brain'·the 'thinking' brain or cerebrum·was far less developed than that of Cro·Magnon man. In the descendants of Cro·Magnon man (with his part·Neanderthal brain), the 'lower brain', the instinctive 'cerebellum' was gradually suppressed. Modern man conquered his world by being objective, by observing nature, so he had to ,suppress that part of his being that operated in an entirely different way, empathising with nature, mingling with it _ . The 'old brain' controls our . 'autonomiC nervous system', the system controlling glands and 'inner states of. the 'organism'. Modern man preferred to be more preoccupied with the WBrld ou·idf him than with ·.l1isWlerstjies: • '. " :., 'According to · Gooch, even the •. reliti .. po;itiQns oj the old brain·and the new are significant. The new brain is above, and this is why we speak of 'higher things', of gods dwelling in heaven or Olympus; the old brain is below, hence devils in hell (the underworld). dwarfs who live in underground caves, and so on. In what he admits to be a wild piece of speculation, he even suggests that the old brain may have been able to somehow see the new brain stretched out above it, and so derived the idea of heaven as a starry firmament. A very large part of the book·about 90%·is given to setting out the different realms of the old brain and the new, and assigning all kinds of phenomena to one realm or the other. For example, he sees communism as essentially a product of the cerebellum (old brain), with its emphasis on human sympathy, on forces from 'below', while fascism (and conservatism) come from the new consciousness, with its desire for reason, order, discipline. It is all fascinating stuff. As a book reviewer, I


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usually groan at the sight of great hefty volumes, and my gloom is mostly justified in the first fifty pages. I actually read through most of Stan Gooch's book in a single day, continual·Iy amazed and delighted by his skill in the handling of ideas. He brings in so many weird and unexpected illustrations that you can almost enjoy it purely as imaginative literature_ Just as a piece of intellectual trapeze·work, it is quite stunning. But how far does it hold water? I have now read it twice (I reviewed it for another magazine when it first came out), and I'm still by no means sure. I'd better disclose personal bias here. I am also inclined to divide man into ' two parts; but not the 'Self' and 'Ego'. I'd suggest that the main problem of most living creatures·especially man is that they are too 'automated'. I am able to type this review without even thinking about my fingers because the typing is done by a kind of robot inside me. 'I', the active, willing 'me', has only to worry about Stan Gooch', book, and how to outline its arguments to my readers; my robot does the typing for me. The trouble is that this robot takes over many of the things I don't want him to do for me. I can eat, drink, take exercise, even make love, 'automatically', but I don't get as much fun out of these functions as I do when 'the real me' performs them. But whether I like it or not, the robot does a great deal of my living for me. I am inclined to see the basic psychological conflict in life as the attempt of the 'real'. to stop the robot muscling in on its territory. And that is why I read poetry, listen to music, make love even read Mr Gooch's book. It is why I enjoy a good horror film, or descending into the green twilight of Wagner's Rheingold: they wake up the 'real me' and help it suppress the robot. Now I don't expect Stan Gooch to have come across my root theory although I first propounded it ten years ago; but there is nothing about our 'automatic' functioning in his book; and even when he discusses the way that baby ducks can have habits 'imprinted' into them, he still doesn't see its significance·the way that many of tile 'irra·tional' phenomena he discusses can be better explained as a revolt against the robot than a clash between the old brain and the new. That is not to say that I discount his theory. As far as I know, it was Robert Graves who first suggested, in The White Goddess, that there are two distinct and contradictory knowledge systems·the 'lunar' and the 'solar'; he insists that 'lunar' knowledge is not some can a inferior, confused variety based on ignorance, but an independent system based on myth and symbol, and on powers of the


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mind that are unrecognised by ordinary consciousness. I accepted Graves' view and developed it at some length in a book called The Occult. Stan Gooch's book is also based on this idea although he speaks of 'Knowledge I' and 'Knowledge II' instead of solar and lunar knowledge. The antinomy is erected into a vast theoretical structure that is full of originality, and the fact that Stan Gooch argues from psychology and biology as much as from mythology and poetry gives his book a scientific dimension that Graves lacks. Like Graves·and Jung·he suggests that the I Ching is a good example of a lunar knowledge system. And at this point, the reader waits for the argument to take off into realms of parapsychology and occultism ·where it is obviously headed sooner or later (perhaps in volume two). But it changes its mind and turns back, just at the point where you feel the revelations are about to occur. There's a feeling of an interrupted orgasm. Still, apart from that, it's a remarkable achievement, probably the most interesting work of non·fiction published in 19' I was naturally curious about its author; so when I was asked to write about the book, I was glad to take the opportunity to meet Stan Gooch. I was quite sure what to expect. The name conjures up a large, clumsy individual with horn·rimmed glasses, a Yorkshire accent and gaps between his teeth. The reality was less jarring, if less unusual; a smallish man with a dark beard, dress in casual jeans and sweater, with a with drawn manner. The accent was Landor insofar as it was anything·he was born in Bermondsey, which also produced Tommy Steele, Henry Cooper, Max Bygraves and Michael Caine; like them Stan Gooch is working class. He told IT his childhood had been shy and 'extremeIy neurotic'; he read obsessively·'I'd read every book in the local library by the age of 11 '·and later developed a duodenal ulcer and migraine. He ended school with a surge of brilliance, collecting just about every prize, then spent several years drifting from job to job-including school-teaching in Birmingham and a year as a scrap iron merchant. Something was trying to get out, but h wasn't sure what. Not surprisingly, he had a nervous breakdown, and, at another point, be..:ame a spiritualist medium. 11 was while he was reading for a teaching diploma that he came across the work of Karen Horney, and suddenly made the dizzying discovery of depth psychology. He became a senior research psychologist, explored half a dozen more dead·ends·including an unsuccessful marriage·and finally started to write novels and poetry. A chance me ing with a director of Penguin Books I to the commission for Total Man; I suspect Penguins must have been dismayed when the huge wodge of typescript landed on the desk. The book c out in England in 1972, and didn't se' the Thames on fire; but even since then( it has quietly acquired readers, and is actually selling better now than immediately after publication. It came out recently in America, and the signs are that it will find an altogether more re audience


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there. The book's hostile critics will say-and have already said·that it is basic; a development of Freud's antinomy between Conscious and Subconscious with Jungian archetypes thrown in. There is some truth in this·the book is profoundly I Jungian in spirit·but in many vital respects it goes beyond Freud and Jung. It completely lacks the pessimism and reductionism of Freud, and the neuro·physiological approach gives it a down·to·earth feeling which I find lacking in Jung. The dozens of references to animal behaviour relate it to the work of Lorenz, Desmond Morris and Robert Ardrey. Germaine Greer, Shulamith Firestone and co. should be delighted with all he has to say about woman: that she is basically a different kind of creature from man·almost a different species·and ought to firmly reject the temptation to imitate man in his own fields. The political implications should please the left wing which, like Woman, has its roots in the 'old brain' and the old knowledge. At the same time, Mr Gooch is far too much the outsider to be bound by any ideological loyalties. In the final chapter, he makes it clear that he is not interested in the conflict of old brain versus new brain, Knowledge II versus Knowledge I, but in transcending both of them. His basic argument is that if man can take dle Self fully into partnership, most of his present binds and blockages will disappear·along with the psychotic civilisation·and he will develop a range of powers beyond anything he can at present imagine. It is this evolutionary flavour that gives the book its urgency, so that even when the argument seems weakest, there is still an underlying sense of overall vision. If Stan Gooch is right, then his book is very important indeed; and even if he is half·wrong, he is still one of the most exciting and original thinkers to appear in many years. Total Man by Stan Gooch, Allen Lane, London (1972) £4.50. The British paperback of Total Man probably won't appear until the end of this year. £4.50 is rather out of the reach of Undercurrents readers, but the American paperback version can be obtained from Compendium Soaks, 240 Camden High Street, London W1 8QS. Stan Gooch's second book Personality and Evolution (Wildwood House) has now appeared. Within a few weeks of publication it was chosen as one of the Sunday Times books of the year by Jacquetta Hawkes. Although savagely attacked by the psychology Establish·ment, the book


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has generated enough interest to merit a full·length interview from the magazine World Medicine and an invitation to the author to speak at the world conference of the Health For The New Age Trust (see p8 this issue).

PLANTS KEEP THEIR SECRETCan plants read thoughts? Can they trans·mute the elements? A book published in the USA late in 1973, The Secret Life of Plants, claims they can. Jamie McCullough is himself engaged in research on the stranger capabilities of plants, and he talked about the book to Tony Durham. What kind of people are they who wrote this? He's a reporter, a journalist, a sensationalist. They're not scientists? Absolutely not. There's no sort of critical faculty at all. I mean the thing's full of illustrations. They could afford to illustrate it. But there's not one drawing of one plant. What are these illustrations? They're just, you know, a sort of art nouveau chapter headings. It's quite a beautifully produced book really. It is, yeah. It's nice art nouveau, sort of dreamy illustrations, to go with the chapter headings. They could afford to illustrate it, they obviously didn't have any problem about that, but there's not one diagram of anybody's apparatus. Not one drawing of a particular plant. The whole thing goes on about, 'plants can do such·and·such' .. but there's probably only about ten different plants mentioned by name in the entire book. Isn't there an audience which would actually like a book like that and would hate the scientific details? I think it's hit the best·seller lists in the States, so obviously there is. It's your Life magazine. do·you·believe it·or don't·you sort of Reader's Digest how·I found·God·through·the·plants sort of thing. What strikes me is that books of this kind·I felt rather the same about 'Psychic Research behind the Iron Curtain '·I felt that it's a bit like a tit magazine, inasmuch as it indicates without revealing. Exactly the same psychology, right. And I suppose in that way it's splendid .. more tits per square yard than .. you know! Club International of the psychic world .. But what about the serious audience? The audience who would love the scientific details reads the technical journals, and this wouldn't be allowed to come out there. It's one of the heresies. So the only way this can get around is in this rather garbled way. The fact that they've put it out will bring it to maybe 50 people who'll start experimenting. It's


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definite plus and it's good that they \"'quote it at all. Is that a bibliography at the end there? It could be the most useful thing in the book. It is, much the most. Quite a lot of them are magazine articles that are just quot·ing the old Backster reports, · But for instance I came across references to France. Somebody told me about him in another context in fact, two years ago, and I couldn't even find him in the British Museum technical library and gave up. He's put in all the references from Bose. Jagadis Chandra Bose, he was the guy who really started this, I mean he was a good man, you know! What did he do? He started measuring growth rate with porcupine quills. Using these quills as a sort of lever system like a barograph, or something? .. As levers, right. He was "getting magnifications of ten thousand to one·and . could happily pick up the growth rate without any problem at all. When was that, was that before electron·ics and everything? Oh, sure, it was 1913 he started, in India. Really amazing man, you know, ";. he wrote twelve books and every single book is an experiment per page. The whole of chapter six is about Bose, that's 20 pages and most of it's pretty informative. I mean if you hadn't heard of Bose , be(ore it would knock you into finding out a bit more about him. It sort of de·values Bose because it talks about him in exactly the same terms as the man who's supposed to be picking up signals from outer space·which sounds just like one of these people who's fooling themselves. Just to add some background to that, how does he pick up signals from outer space? With plants? Well this is this 'vegetal tissue' thing, in a temperature controlled bath. " And what does he do, does he point these things at the sky and get signals? Yes. " "'Their instrument .. was left pointing randomly at the sky. As Lawrence bit into a Hebrew National knockwurst the steady whistling sound from his equipment was interrupted by a series of distinct pulsations'. This style! It seems .. it's very journalistic isn't it? It lays on the background detail, you know .... · what kind of sandwich he was eating, or sausage.


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Yeah, right. There's plenty of that kind of background del<lil, you know, report· " age stuff, and very little background detail about what they're actually doing, Do you think that all the things about what kind of sandwiches they were eat·ing at the time would really make the book more interesting for anyone? I don't see how, no. There's all these sorts of things .. you know, music makes plants grow, magnetic fields make plants grow, electrostatic charge makes plants grow, prayer makes plants grow, etc etc. Is the idea that these things work on it in a physical sense or are a lot of them working through human minds nearby? I mean for example the music, do sound vibrations make plants grow or is it that there's a person around those plants who happens to dig Bach or what· ever it is? Well this is a big question raised by the chapter on music. This chapter contradicts itself, it presents a great number of contradictory results all in one chapter. The guy who wrote it doesn't seem to have noticed there's any contradiction. Some people say pink noise does ,:t best, some people say low frequencies round about a hundred cycles a second, some people say high frequencies, some people say Indian music some people say Bach, and there's a sort of happy little thing about how when she was playing Indian music they grew lovingly around the speaker and when she played( rock music they went up the walls. Where else they could actually grow to ,... is a good question, but still .. So anyway there are all these rather contradictory results which would be made coherent if you were ·d)' saying, well the plants grew that the people wanted to grow. But the guy never even notices the contradiction or proposes the possibility. Can you, as a reader of this report, form any overall impression about how it all works, I mean did it spur you to form a general theory of what influences plants? There are enormous amounts of information about electricity, magnetism, some body who wired a plant up to direct current, somebody who gave it negative ions, somebody who poured magnetite his fields and somebody who does a 'radio·cellular oscillator', which tells you absolutely nothing about what it is he's doing. , really it tells you nothing at aJ There's a little chapter on how plants can transmute the elements which really I don't know what to think of at all. What's the evidence for that? Kervran. Says that he's weighed the mineral input and then weighed the mineral output and found that there's lots more phosphorus, for instance, than, there was when he started.


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Now I don't wont to pour cold water 0 that but as a chemist I know how difficult it is to do analyses, and chemical analysis is an art not a science. You think measuring the amount of lead in someone's blood was a nice simple analytical problem but it isn't: you gel 2096 errors on it or more. So maybe hE suffering from the same kind of problem, particularly if he · dealing with trace elements. Yeah. I'd be inclined basically, to dis·count that chapter as being rubbish. Do you believe personally that any of these experiments could lead to things which actually alter our ''''y of life? f example will it alter the way we grow our crops, and garden and things? Well. My personal thing is that this is going to affect a great deal more than that. I think trees have·just from what I've seen so far, their sensory things are amazingly more subtle than ours are, in certain respects. Now if fifty inquiring minds start to check out the book a hell of a tot ought to come out. The Secret Life of Plants, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. Harper and Row 1973, pp xiv + 402 $8.95.

PHENOMENON Phenomenon is a new magazine which will try 'to relate the sciences and the : mystic arts'. In the first issue, out March, 23rd, we're promised articles by Arthur Guirdham on Reincarnation, Peter Simester on Astrology. and Politics, Glyn Underwood on Alpha Waves, Jill Purse on Spirals, Jerome Burne on Ions in the Atmosphere, Painton Cowen on Celestial Sci";'ce and Mary Flanagan on the Art of Astrology . Looks as though this isn't just another gee·whiz occult magazine but a serious, open·minded exploration of the areas . where the two conflicting world·views are bumping against each other·perhaps even about to fuse together. Price will be 50p for single copies, £2.00 a year's subscription (4 issues). From Phenomenon Publications Ltd, 52 lfield Road, London SW10, telephone 01·352 9030. They also have a few copies left of the Phenomenon Calendar 1974·1975. It's a time-freak's feast in 28 pages, presenting Gregorian, Chinese, Hindu, Maya, Aztec and Muslim calendars, moon phases, planetary motions, astrological data and other goodies all alongside. It's big, beautiful and costs £2.00. The various time systems aren't fully explained but I gather they will be in the first issue of the magazine.


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Roofless in Xanadu 'We were inspired, we had a vision and we were in a hurry·we had people 'waiting for a roof over their heads. We tried every material we could get cheap enough: wood, plywood, cardboard, sheet metal. aluminium; fibreglass/ Vectra cloth/polypropylene/all manner of horrid chemical caulks/vinyl/polythene/plexiglas/ Lexan/A BS plastic/ steel and on and on .... If you've read the earlier writings of Lloyd Kahn, Steve Baer and fellow dome freak, you'll know about that vision. Perhaps one day you even went to work yourself, a tube of waterproofing silicone in one hand and a copy of Bucky Fuller in the other. I guess it was ,something that had to be explored, an exciting new way into the very old business of putting something between yourself and the ,sky By the time Domebook Two came out in 1971, experience had taught the dome·builders to be careful with plastics, even if you could get them cheap or free. Same year, Lloyd Kahn promised us a next instalment (see Last Whole Earth Catalog, page 93). It ha' now been published in the United States, and a few copies have reached England. It', called Shelter, and it', a big, wise and beautiful book. Wiser than the earlier Domebooks, and wider-ranging too, because geodesic domes aren't even dealt with until past page 100, and then only as one of the many, many technologies man has evolved for shelter in varying environments. Respect for other cultures and traditional crafts·manship runs through this book: it represents a revolt against Buckminster Fuller and Le Corbusier's idea of houses as machines. lloyd Kahn again: 'I've found the less molecular rearrang·ing a material has undergone, the better it feels to be around. Wood, rock, adobe as compared with polyurethane foam and polycarbonate resin windows'. That's from Lloyd's own rap at the start of the section called Domebook Three. He now reckons that plastic is not only aesthetically unattractive but it can't stand the weather either. Poly·urethane foam burns like gasoline once it's got going. Vinyl sweats out ib plasticizer which may well be poisonous. Glass fibre makes your hands itch. Above all, plastics exposed to sun and air usually ,imply ROT. A, for domes, .. build them by all means and this book will give you some hint'. But don't fall for such hoary dome myths as: our heads are spherical, therefore our houses should be hemispheres. Lloyd is sceptical about the old Buck Fuller argument that spheres make the most economical use of materials. Given today's tools and materials, says Lloyd, it may be that after all, the cube is the most efficient ,shape. Bucky really takes a bashing:


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even the credit for inventing geodesic domes is stripped away from him. Apparently the first one was built as a planetarium on the roof of the Zeiss works in Jena, Germany, in 1922, to the design of Dr Walter Bauersfeld. That's 25 years before Fuller even thought of domes. Shelter is built, like a good dry,tone wall,of chunk, of copyright material from other book" feedback from Domebook Two readers, and a few compact blocks of writing from the editor, who hasn't felt it necessary to mortar the whole thing together with a running commentary. It has the big format of the Whole Earth Catalog, but the layout is more disciplined, more architectural if you like. Symmetry without uniformity. Anecdotes, interviews, even a few poems. And lots of pictures. Some pages consist entirely of photo· graphs, and there are two four·page colour sections. Information about philosophies and technique, of building has been gathered from all-over the world. There arc lessons to be learned from the tents of the Bedouin and Tuareg, the yurts of central Asia. Personally, I'm fascinated by the idea of a home as something mobile or temporary, perhaps t,because my own city house is so much the opposite. Reading this bit, I recalled that, according to the old Chinese text, Kubla Khan’s pleasure dome was in fact a huge marquee made of skins and lined with priceless furs. Later on, in one of the book's more philosophical passages, I found this ,statement: 'The Earth is only a temporary shelter for living creatures'. Shelter practices the 'access to tools' principle; at least, it does if books are tools. There's a nice bibliography and tempting chunk, lifted with permission from certain key books such as Meaning in Architec·ture (ed Charles Jencks and George Baird). The latter contains Aldo van Eyck's fascinating article on the Dogan of Mali, the famous tribe whose houses and villages are embodiments of their cosmology. That really seems to be where Shelter is at: the philosophy, ideology and psychology of building. So I wonder if the attempt to give nitty·gritty practical instructions really works. There are several plans given, for basic sheds and huts such as used to be advertised along with the corsets on the back of Radio Times. Perhaps they would give courage to people who aren't used to improvising with wood. Perhaps there are better designs in straight books in your local library. I don't know; I haven't checked out my local library's woodwork section lately. There are two pages on making doors and windows·again public library stuff, surely?·and a page on 'Tools and Tips'. Example: 'Door handle ..


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find a branch .. also good for drawer pulls, coat hooks. You don't have to go to the hardware store for hardware'. I have a love·hate relationship with books which offer 'tips'. Real craftsmanship can't be achieved through 'tips' and 'handy hints'; on the other hand I don't really sec why when we have bright ideas we ,shouldn't .. l share them around. Anyway, Sheller's a nice book and I thank Lloyd Kahn and hi, friend, for taking me, for an afternoon, to a place where I could smell the resin in my nostrils, feel the sawdust on my jeans and the axe·blisters on my palms .. until I looked up again to ,see the ,sky was dark, the street lamps were on, and I realised there probably wasn't a single tree within fifty miles that I would actually be allowed to chop down. Tony Durham Shelter. Ed Lloyd Kahn. Shelter publications, PO Box 279, Bolinas, California" 94924, USA. Available by mail from: Mountain Book" PO Box 4811, Santa Barbara", California 93103. S6 + 60t postage' and handling within USA. Presumably costs", more outside(' USA.

Power Pack Survival Scrapbook 5·'Energy' Stefan Szczelkun Unicorn Book,shop·Brighton £1.50 (On March 1, 1974, Unicorn i, moving to Nant·Gwilw, Llanfynydd, Carmarthen, Wales). SURVIVAL SCRAPBOOK 5 set, out to provide information on small·scale, decentralised and non·destructive generation and uses of Energy. It's very pleasing to see all or most of the threads of Alternative Energy Technology drawn together in a single work, and the book is an effort of considerable merit and scope. But it is marred by two faults: poor exploitation of the format, and frequent superficiality. To deal with the less serious fault first; the book's format seems to have emerged from very confused thinking. Enormous amounts of paper, perhaps half the volume's total, arc simply wasted. I cannot, for instance, accept any plea of 'poetic' justification for the inclusion of a small picture of a man standing on what looks like an oval carpet in the middle of a blank page, followed by two more pages completely blank. In all, ten of the book's 126 A4 ,size pages are completely blank. The rationale for this, is that the space can be used for 'quick additions' (notes) by the reader, an idea which i, largely rendered redundant by the fact that the whole


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volume is also punched for filing in a ring·binder, with a non·numerical indexing system to facilitate additions and extensions. Throughout the book, the actual information density is strikingly low. Most of the text is hand·lettered, though several different typewriter faces are also used occasionally and there are large areas given over to decorative illustrations or pieces of polemic. The pieces from Raoul Vaneigen I like a great deal, but I question the need to set them out on their own on two A4 pages with about 200 word, on each. All these idiosyncracies for me add up to a major access problem·a subtle alienating effect which encourages skimming from one pretty picture to the next t. Neither is it exclusively format shortcomings which evoke this response. One of the criteria for the selection of information, stated on the opening page, is that it should be 'poetic rather than banally convenient'. This unfortunate phrase provides considerable insight into the philosophy of the book. Most, though not all, sections lack the depth and precision that technical readers tend to expect. Of course this can be countered by saying that the 'Survival' series is not intended for technical readers, but it is surely intended for practical readers, and few of the articles contain enough 'meat' to get a project off the ground without further reading. Those who are content merely to daydream about AT may find a great deal in the 'Scrapbook' to whet their appetites, but in most cases practical action would require recourse to some of the books listed in the excellent bibliography. £1.50 however seem, a high price to pay even for a first·rate book list. If this criticism seems harsh, consider the instructions for making a parabolic sunlight·reflector below: 'Plywood knife edges of parabolic curvature are use (sic) to shape wet sand in a box by rotating them about a central pivot. Wet plaster is then carefully poured into the sand mould/( A hollow plaster mould is made in this way. Removed from the sand it I smoothed until perfect. This mould is t/;en used to make a glass fibre (grp dish into which may be stuck small mirrors or 'orange peel sections of metalised plastic'. This is accompanied by a diagram which (at least to me) is totally baffling. However the prize for obscurity must go to a single rhetorical (?) question accompanying a picture of a working elephant in the' Animal Power' section: 'Cruelty a critical conceptual confusion’In short, the 'Energy' scrapbook tries to cover too much territory in too few words and the author underestimates the sheer difficulty of writing a clear exposition that anyone can understand. Balanced against this, of course, is the terrific range of topics that are touched on and the size of the mass audience the it is going to reach. The annoying thing is that with so much space available many of the worst difficulties could have,' been overcome and we might have had a standard 'soft energy' textbook of lasting value and importance.


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David Gardiner

" The reason that the techniques describe in here are simple is not because I believe that such simplicity will ultimately give us the best technology for living, but because the best and sometimes only teacher is experience and it is only by becoming involved in the practical nature of these technologies in one way or another that their advantages will become evident. This involvement is only likely if the gadgets described are as near possible immediately available t. everybody. The development towards an enlightened society cannot be made by speCialist groups (who will gain their own vested interests and esoteric knowledge, and who will perpetuate SEPARATION) but only with reference" to and by the complete involvement of people as a whole can we build a mature society whose members can live together fully and peacefully”

Abacus, A·bomb ... How It Works Marshall Cavendish; 98 weekly parts from January 1974, 30p each (total £29.40) plus £10.50 for binders if you like. Part·works have, in the last ten years, become very much part of British publishing, and Marshall Cavendish is one of their most experienced producers. Mind Alive was probably the most successful such publication so far, and its successor How It Works has a very professional feel. The work takes the form of an encyclopaedia of 'invention, science and technology', proceeding alphabetically 50 that parts one and two (the traditional double·size first issue rip off) get as far as Alkaline Earth Metals. Science, of course, cannot be treated in this way without plentiful lack of cohesion, and as a way of learning science How It Works is pretty much a non+starter. The real interest in How It Works for common freaks must be as a guide to actual things to make or do, and the list of contents shows plenty of useful devices from the abacus on out. But here again the magazine meets identity problems, this time concerning the actual amount of detail given. A fine example of this is the very second item in the book, A·bomb. (And let's in passing, hope that entries by-alphabetical order of abbreviation will be discon·tinued). This consists of an O·level Physics coverage of nuclear fission, a lot of history of the bomb and a magnificent photograph of the remains of Nagasaki, but only a few hundred words, less than a third of the total, on the actual working of the device, so that anyone really wanting to understand, let alone make a bomb would hardly be any nearer after reading the feature than before. Even if the entire bomb feature was merely a stunt for the press, as its artificial placing in the first issue would suggest, it all bodes badly for How It Works chances as a 'make it' guide. Later on in the first two issues things improved, however, with very informative features on aircraft engines,


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radio antennae and even accumulators. It remains to be seen, then, how use·ful How It Works will be as a guide to making things, But what competition does it have for the amateur wanting to put a few useful devices together? Surprisingly little, would seem to be the answer. The main opposition is the Universal Encyclopaedia of Machines, at about one· twentieth the price, from Paladin. Of course, it's a good deal small·er but wins hands down for directness and» general usefulness. It lacks the quite splendid photographs of How It Works, but this is probably more than compensated for by the lack of the latter's quite ghastly taste in twee pastel shades for the line diagrams; one colour would have been much preferable. The content of How It Works is difficult to assess, stuck very badly between detail and background coverage, and between technology and the need to compete with its rival All About Science, which has now been running nearly a year. Although a book on general science, or on technology, or an early inventions would tell you more about any specific item; it may well be that the finished product will be far more interesting than any or all·of these. The best idea, in fact, is probably to wait until the last part has appeared, when a series of books of bits may well appear, culled from the encyclopaedia. This could be by far the cheapest and most useful way of getting what you want of the book unpolluted by biographies of Tycho Brahe or flight control plans of Heathrow.

Everbeenadne • My cryoballistic friend Daedalus notes with interest the report (Novosti Infor·mation Service, 13.3.73) that Russian scientists in the Antarctic have discovered an explosive form of ice which is saturated with bubbles of compressed air. A similar material was prepared some time ago at Dreadco's laboratories, and tested in several applications where con·ventional explosives were unsuitable in view of the heat and poisonous gases they generate. Small charges inserted into the roots of rotten teeth were used for instant and almost painless extractions. The Dreadco explosive can also be used for extinguishing oil gushers, with far more reliable effect than dynamite. Daed·alus points out that the cooling effect of the ice is relatively unimportant compared with the Joule·Thomson cooling which occurs when the micro·bubbles of air are explosively·and hence adiabatically·decompressed. In another experiment a ton of the explosive ice, in granulated form, was dropped into a thundercloud from an air· craft. The aircraft then turned round, and fired an air·to·air missile into the slowly falling cloud of granules in order 10 detonate them. The simultaneous release of a large volume of extremely cold air, and an abundance of tiny ice nuclei into


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the cloud led to a brief cloudburst after which the storm rapidly cleared. The amount of energy that can be crammed into a given volume of ice before it explodes spontaneously is limi·ted by the small tensile strength of pure ice. Dreadco scientists have found that they can make safer·or alternatively more powerful·forms of ice explosive by incorporating short·staple carbon fibres as reinforcement. Studies of the physics of the explosive process revealed that a shock wave travels through the mass of ice. and is amplified by the explosion of each tiny bubble it touches. Changes of bubble size, density alter the shock wave velocity these parameters are made to vary i smooth manner through a specimen j possible to obtain curved wavefronts: focussing effects. A cylinder of ice. an 'extra·fizzy' core acts as a hall, charge, and easily penetrates 1/2"" armour plate. If damping is introduced, for ex pie by adding sawdust to the gas/water: mixture before freezing it under pressure the shock wave is no longer able propagate, and the explosive acquires the well·behaved slow 'burning' characteristics of the 'propellent' type of plosive. A small ice·fuelled rocket reached a height of five miles above Dread, test site in the Outer Hebrides. Daedalus, is fascinated by the negative feedback which governs the rate of dissolution of ice·and·sawdust mixture. If excessive PRESsure builds up in the rocket's ·combustion' chamber, the force of each; bubble explosion is diminished and correspondingly less effective in provoking further bubbles to burst. Daedalus has discontinued research the explosive forms of ice·gas mix since he is worried about its mili implications, but he is pushing into commercial production with 'low-pressure' forms which don't explode. One sue a shaving tablet, consisting of fro foamed soap solution. A month's shaves take up no more space in the d freeze than a tin of frozen orange juice The tablet is wiped lightly over beard, whereupon it deposits a thick even coat of lather, and at the ! time chills the skin so that each bristle stands up perpendicularly to meet the razor.

Members of TPC's "instant journalism" team at work on a recENT issue of Old Scientist. 'Production of OS has been semi·automated for some years’ said a spokesman . proudly, "Our readers do not appear to . have detected any 'difference" . .


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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The Cast: THIS UNDERCURRENTS was designed and edited by Sally and Godfrey Boyle. The News Editor was Pat Coyne, and Tony Durham edited the Reviews. Apart from Peter Harper, who was invaluable, there isn't space to mention the rest. But we are extremely grateful to them anyway

. All contributions gratefully received UNDERCURRENTS welcomes contributions from its readers, either in the normal typewritten form, or in the form of "pastedup" artwork. If you do send us pasteups, though, please make sure that the proportions of your artwork are such that it can be reduced to A4 size. line drawings, tables, and so on must be in black ink on a white 'background. If they aren't, our ,printers have hysterics, and we usually have to re-draw them. Typescripts should be doublespaced, and on one side of the paper only --otherwise, they are very difficult to edit, and even harder to typeset. If you must send handwritten copy, please write as legibly as you call, and leave reasonable spacing between lines. Please remember also that photographs may have to be cut before they can be reduced to fill the space on a page allocated to them. So if your photograph is valuable and you don't want it messed about , please write a note prominently on the back to that effect. These points may seem niggling, but you'd be amazed at how much time and effort would be saved if everyone observed them. OK? UNDERCURRENTS can also accept "inserts" for insertion into the envelopes in which subscription copies are mailed. Obviously, there are limitations on the amount of weight we can add to each mailing, so please contact us before sending any inserts. We'll try to include as much as we can, though.

Undercurrents 06 March-April 1974

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Transcript of Undercurrents 06 March-April 1974