Renewable Technologies

Amelia’s Magazine | Lammas Low Impact Courses and Conferences

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Lammas Low Impact Aurelia Lange
Illustration by Aurelia Lange

Wales – the land of soaring song, viagra turf-churning scrums and cunning cross-dressing rioters – is today at the forefront of sustainable, information pills ecological development. In 2009 the Welsh Assembly Government announced a national sustainable development scheme, buy One Wales: One Planet, which led last year to Technical Advice Note (TAN) 6: One Planet Development. The objective of the One Planet Development policy is truly laudable: for Wales to be using only its fair and sustainable share of the earth’s resources – which was measured in 2003 at 1.88 global hectares per person – within the space of a single generation. To this end, One Planet Developments must be zero carbon in both their construction and use, and within five years sit on land that provides for the inhabitants’ basic needs of income, food, energy and waste assimilation. Developments can take the form of single homes, co-operative communities or larger settlements.

Tir y Gafel Hub Outside
Low-impact building The Hub at Tir y Gafel

Roundhouse in construction at Tir y Gafel
A family’s roundhouse under construction at Tir y Gafel

Tree Planting sign at Tir y Gafel
Crafted wooden sign at sustainable settlement in West Wales, Tir y Gafel

One such community is Tir y Gafel, nestled in 76 acres of dizzyingly beautiful ex-farmland mixed pasture and woodland deep within the Pembrokeshire hills. Tir y Gafel is the first eco village to be birthed by Lammas – a cooperative trust that exists to support the development of eco villages in West Wales – following efforts by its founders, members and fellow low-impact supporters to gain planning permission for such developments. Currently under construction by the residents and volunteers, within a few years Tir y Gafel will comprise nine residential smallholdings created using the latest innovations in permaculture, environmental design and green technology. And, of course, they’ll be completely off-grid: water will be sourced from Tir y Gafel’s existing spring; on-site renewables such as the village hydro-electric facility will provide the sparks; fuel supplies will exist in the form of willow and ash; and organic waste will prove food for the village’s abundance of plant life.

Tir y Gafel flowers decorate The Hub
Tir y Gafel flowers decorate village meeting and celebration space, The Hub

Tir y Gafel Cat
Two of Tir y Gafel’s diverse range of residents

The people of Tir y Gafel will not just live off the land, but will nourish it, enriching their plots to the end that the land can support a range of livelihoods, from the growth of cash crops such as blueberries to crafts conjured from the woven hair of malamutes. The completion of the village community building The Hub is also in sight.

For many gazing in awe at the energy, vision and strength of pioneering spirit exhibited by Lammas and the Tir y Gafel residents, a relocation to Mars can seem more reachable than a move to a One Planet lifestyle, with all the land issues and lifestyle transformations it might involve. One of the guiding principles of Lammas, though, is to create a model for sustainable eco living that can be replicated across Wales – and, hopefully, outside it. Education plays a central role in the current life of Tir y Gafel, with courses and conferences inviting people to experience and explore low-impact living, and while doing so help make this groundbreaking example a reality. WWOOFers and other volunteers have been a driving force in the building of The Hub, exchanging enthusiasm and sweat for experience of low-impact building and a role in the future of sustainable living.

Footprints in the farmhouse
Lammas: Steps in the right direction

Building a timber-frame barn wall at Tir y Gafel
Building a timber-frame barn wall at Tir y Gafel

Carving joists for timber-frame barn wall at Tir y Gafel
Joy of joists: getting to grips with timber-framing at Tir y Gafel

Aside from a regular rotation of passionate volunteers, attendees of courses held at Tir y Gafel go on to spread the word, objectives and feasibility of One Planet lifestyles such as those that they experience and learn about through Lammas. The Eco Village Conference will bring those inspired by Lammas’s work and eager to grapple with the practicalities of creating an eco home or village together between 9-11 September, when the folks behind Lammas will impart advice on everything from land-based livelihoods to legal details. Other courses currently booking include a weekend covering willow planting, harvesting and sculpture.

A couple of Lammas course attendees tour the land
People power: Lammas Low Impact Experience course attendees tour the land

Group cooking at Tir y Gafel
The community that cooks together…

Tir y Gafel volunteer spades

Foraged blackberries at Tir y Gafel
Foraged blackberries at Tir y Gafel

Later in the month comes another of the enormously influential Low Impact Experience weeks, which have so far seen dozens of eco-conscious minds enter Tir y Gafel curious and leave – a week and countless incredible vegetarian meals later – with fresh skills spanning cob building, bread baking, stem wall forming, foraging, escapee hen catching and beyond. Led by Hoppi Wimbush and James Giddings, the most recent Low Impact Experience Week, held in August, was for this writer an inspirational reminder of the joyful warm ache of limbs worked sawing barn wall joists; of the rich pleasure – irate wasps and all – of a permaculture landscape; and of the timeless worth of a mental store of stories to tell while rain batters darkened windows. Above all, though, the Low Impact Experience Week re-affirmed the significance of community to our selves, our health and our happiness – and not just because the attendees shared our foraged wood sorrel.

Foraging for wood sorrel at Tir y Gafel
Foraged Tir y Gafel wood sorrel during the Low Impact Experience Week

Baking bread at Tir y Gafel
Future kneads: The Low Impact Experience bake-off

Banquet at The Hub, Tir y Gafel
Banqueting at The Hub, Tir y Gafel

Fire at Tir y Gafel ceilidh

Long gone are the days when it was considered avant-garde to believe that the future health and happiness of our communities rests on the success and extended positive influence of low-impact living initiatives such as those that Lammas is pioneering at Tir y Gafel. As the people of Lammas and Tir y Gafel are showing through their courses and conferences, if we are willing to share knowledge, skills, sweat and time as part of a wider ecologically minded and responsible community, the future can look very, very bright. Even if it is lit via homemade solar panels.

Written by Amy Hughes on Monday September 5th, 2011 4:55 pm

Categories ,Agriculture, ,Aurelia Lange, ,Baking, ,Biodiversity, ,camping, ,Cat, ,Centre for Alternative Technology, ,Co-operative, ,cob building, ,community, ,composting, ,Conference, ,Coppicing, ,course, ,Eco-village, ,Education, ,Farming, ,Grass roof, ,Hoppi Wimbush, ,Hydro electric, ,James Giddings, ,Lammas, ,Land-based Livelihood, ,Livestock, ,Living Roof, ,Low impact, ,Malamute, ,One Planet Development, ,Paul Wimbush, ,Pembrokeshire, ,Planning Permission, ,Polytunnel, ,Renewable Technologies, ,Renewables, ,Roundhouse, ,Self-build, ,Solar panels, ,solar power, ,Straw bale building, ,sustainable living, ,TAN 6, ,Timber framing, ,Tir y Gafel, ,Tony Wrench, ,Tree planting, ,vegetarian, ,Volunteering, ,wales, ,Welsh Assembly Government, ,Wild Foraging, ,Willow weaving, ,Wind power, ,Wood crafts, ,Wool crafts, ,WWOOF, ,zero carbon

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Amelia’s Magazine | Solar Impulse: the plane that flies with the power of the sun.

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The Solar Impulse Plane. Illustration by Thereza Rowe.
solar impulse plane-thereza rowe
The Solar Impulse Plane. Illustration by Thereza Rowe.

Holiday season is steadily approaching; the time when adverts for faraway climes become ever more enticing and flight prices drop like environmentalists’ jaws when they see photos of tar sands. Heathrow and London City airports both have plans for expansion, troche whatever the cost to the surrounding area or local people. While they claim that more flights are beneficial to everybody, information pills East Londoners face ever higher levels of respiratory diseases and noise pollution, and Sipson residents wonder when the property laws became irrelevant in the face of the aviation industry. With all this contention, isn’t it about time someone threw some renewable technology into the aero-space?

Enter Solar Impulse. A weird insect-looking plane which runs on solar power, with a wingspan to match that of an Airbus A340 (roughly 63 metres) and a bulbous cockpit hanging in the centre like a spider’s egg sac. Also known as the HB-SIA, the plane has been in development for the past six years, and last week, on April 7th, completed its first two hour test flight. The man behind this project is Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss ex-astronaut who was one of the first men to complete a non-stop round the world tour in a hot air balloon, an experience which led to the realisation for him of the need to live sustainably on the planet which we are currently destroying.

The Solar Impulse Plane. Illustration by Thereza Rowe.
Illustration by Thereza Rowe.

At the moment, Solar Impulse is more of an ambassador for renewable technologies than a useable mode of transport. Much of the technology used was developed solely for, and due to, this project. The wings are covered in photovoltaic cells which convert sunlight to power the propeller. One square metre of cells provides a consistent supply of 28 watts, the equivalent to a lightbulb, over a twenty-four hour period and the planes motor achieves no more than 6kW altogether – similar to the amount the Wright brothers had for their first powered flight of 200 metres. Due to this restriction on power the plans has been stripped of all extraneous weight. The wings are made from a composite carbon-fibre honeycomb around a sandwich shape with carbon ribs placed at intervals to create the aerodynamic shape. The speed is obviously also affected by this and the plane cruises at forty-six miles per hour. The cockpit is also big enough for only one pilot, and is unpressurised, which is fine for test flights which are used to optimise the balance between weight, energy consumption and manoeuvrability, but bigger things are planned for Solar Impulse.

The next steps are more test flights to perfect this balance, and then hopefully a night flight later in the year. This ability to store power and fly over night is what marks Solar Impulse out from the other solar powered plans currently in development. The ultimate goal for the project is to develop a second plane with a pressurised cabin, capable of making a round the world tour, stopping only for pilot changeovers.

The Solar Impulse Plane. Illustration by Thereza Rowe.
Illustration by Thereza Rowe.

The purpose of the Solar Impulse project is to challenge pre-conceived notions of what can be achieved with alternative renewable energies. If a plane can be solar powered, then surely other forms of transport can incorporate this technology into their energy supplies. It has also pushed people to develop more efficient forms of solar technology, advancing this field of research and encouraging new ways of thinking when it comes to uses of alternative energy sources. We know that oil and coal are not only running out, but are derived from the environment at great cost to the planet, and in an age where people are not willing to give up their conveniences no matter how many before and after photos of boreal forests in Alberta are waved in front of them, could solar planes be the saving grace of the aviation industry?

Well, we’re not going to see solar powered jump jets anytime soon, but consider that it was only sixty-six years between a 200 metre flight and two men on the moon. Solar Impulse already has two hours under its belt, who knows where it could progress to from here?

You can read about other similar projects in Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration, available from this very website!

Written by Amelia Wells on Wednesday April 14th, 2010 2:22 pm

Categories ,Alberta, ,Bertrand Piccard, ,Fight the Flights, ,heathrow, ,London City Airport, ,Plane Stupid, ,Renewable Technologies, ,sipson, ,Solar Impulse, ,solar power, ,Tar Sands, ,Thereza Rowe, ,Transition Heathrow

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Amelia’s Magazine | Solar Impulse: the plane that flies with the power of the sun.

by

The Solar Impulse Plane. Illustration by Thereza Rowe.
solar impulse plane-thereza rowe
The Solar Impulse Plane. Illustration by Thereza Rowe.

Holiday season is steadily approaching; the time when adverts for faraway climes become ever more enticing and flight prices drop like environmentalists’ jaws when they see photos of tar sands. Heathrow and London City airports both have plans for expansion, troche whatever the cost to the surrounding area or local people. While they claim that more flights are beneficial to everybody, information pills East Londoners face ever higher levels of respiratory diseases and noise pollution, and Sipson residents wonder when the property laws became irrelevant in the face of the aviation industry. With all this contention, isn’t it about time someone threw some renewable technology into the aero-space?

Enter Solar Impulse. A weird insect-looking plane which runs on solar power, with a wingspan to match that of an Airbus A340 (roughly 63 metres) and a bulbous cockpit hanging in the centre like a spider’s egg sac. Also known as the HB-SIA, the plane has been in development for the past six years, and last week, on April 7th, completed its first two hour test flight. The man behind this project is Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss ex-astronaut who was one of the first men to complete a non-stop round the world tour in a hot air balloon, an experience which led to the realisation for him of the need to live sustainably on the planet which we are currently destroying.

The Solar Impulse Plane. Illustration by Thereza Rowe.
Illustration by Thereza Rowe.

At the moment, Solar Impulse is more of an ambassador for renewable technologies than a useable mode of transport. Much of the technology used was developed solely for, and due to, this project. The wings are covered in photovoltaic cells which convert sunlight to power the propeller. One square metre of cells provides a consistent supply of 28 watts, the equivalent to a lightbulb, over a twenty-four hour period and the planes motor achieves no more than 6kW altogether – similar to the amount the Wright brothers had for their first powered flight of 200 metres. Due to this restriction on power the plans has been stripped of all extraneous weight. The wings are made from a composite carbon-fibre honeycomb around a sandwich shape with carbon ribs placed at intervals to create the aerodynamic shape. The speed is obviously also affected by this and the plane cruises at forty-six miles per hour. The cockpit is also big enough for only one pilot, and is unpressurised, which is fine for test flights which are used to optimise the balance between weight, energy consumption and manoeuvrability, but bigger things are planned for Solar Impulse.

The next steps are more test flights to perfect this balance, and then hopefully a night flight later in the year. This ability to store power and fly over night is what marks Solar Impulse out from the other solar powered plans currently in development. The ultimate goal for the project is to develop a second plane with a pressurised cabin, capable of making a round the world tour, stopping only for pilot changeovers.

The Solar Impulse Plane. Illustration by Thereza Rowe.
Illustration by Thereza Rowe.

The purpose of the Solar Impulse project is to challenge pre-conceived notions of what can be achieved with alternative renewable energies. If a plane can be solar powered, then surely other forms of transport can incorporate this technology into their energy supplies. It has also pushed people to develop more efficient forms of solar technology, advancing this field of research and encouraging new ways of thinking when it comes to uses of alternative energy sources. We know that oil and coal are not only running out, but are derived from the environment at great cost to the planet, and in an age where people are not willing to give up their conveniences no matter how many before and after photos of boreal forests in Alberta are waved in front of them, could solar planes be the saving grace of the aviation industry?

Well, we’re not going to see solar powered jump jets anytime soon, but consider that it was only sixty-six years between a 200 metre flight and two men on the moon. Solar Impulse already has two hours under its belt, who knows where it could progress to from here?

You can read about other similar projects in Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration, available from this very website!

Written by Amelia Wells on Wednesday April 14th, 2010 2:22 pm

Categories ,Alberta, ,Bertrand Piccard, ,Fight the Flights, ,heathrow, ,London City Airport, ,Plane Stupid, ,Renewable Technologies, ,sipson, ,Solar Impulse, ,solar power, ,Tar Sands, ,Thereza Rowe, ,Transition Heathrow

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