MAY 1981 Ivan llli.ch on Ivan Illich Hazel Henderson on Global Economics Volume VI I No.7 $1.50 No Advertising
Page 2 RAIN May 1981 LETTERS Dear RAIN, I apologize to Michael Marien and his short-haired auto mechanic for my polemic and dumb statement about not trusting short-haired mechanics (as contrasted with competent hippies). My comment was largely poetic, referring to a particular time and place when countercultural types suddenly turned to useful ~raft and showed great skill at it. Some hippie newcomers are superbly competent, often more so than very complacent old-timers who have been coasting on past glories. But few young people, short or long-haired, can hope to be as competent, for a long time, as the truly gifted, great, older craftspeople who are a grace and a blessing in so many neighborhoods. Again, I apologize for a flip and silly remark that hadn't nearly enough basis in experience to be stated so emphatically. And, regarding that high-faluting letter from Undercurrents about no-one knows what a BTU is: no one, as he puts it, except in North America. Where does he suppose we live? No matter how hard they try, the British are unable to be civil to us colonials. Karl Hess Kearneysville, WV RAIN Dear Rainfolks, Your article on the Northwest Power Play (Jan. and Feb./Mar.) reminds me of stories my father used to tell me of when he used to work for a power company 30 years ago in northeastern Massachusetts. The big industry in the northeastern U.S. before WWII was the textile industry. These mills were built along the numerous rivers in the area. Dams were built and each mill had its own hydro-electric generating capabilities. After the war, the textile industry in this area began to die out due to more modern factories being built elsewhere. Rather than abandoning the buildings, the owners sold or rented the space to other bus~nesses, luring them in with their electricity. Then my father came in as a salesman for some big power company Journal of Appropriate Technology RAIN is a national information access journal making connections for people seeking more simple and satisfying lifestyles, working to make their communities and regions economically self-reliant, building a society that is durable, just and ecologically sound. RAIN STAFF: Laura Stuchinsky, Mark Roseland, Carlotta Collette, John Ferrell, Kevin Bell. Linnea Gilson, Graphics and Layout. RAIN, Journal of Appropriate Technology, is published 10 times yearly by the Rain Umbrella, Inc., a non-profit corporation located at 2270 N.W. Irving, Portland, Oregon 97210, telephone 503/227-5110. Copyright© 1981 Rain Umbrella, Inc. No part may be reprinted without written permission. Typesetting: Irish Setter Printing: Times Litho Cover Photograph: Ancil Nance
and convinced them that his power was far superior to the electricity generated by their own generators. And they bought it. The next time I see my father I'll have to ask him about what kind of rates he offered these businesses as compared to what the private sector was paying and where nuclear power came into the picture. Peace, Jay Armour Centerport, NY FOOD ·- -------- The Soy of Cooking: A Tofu and Tempeh Recipe Book, compiled by Reggi Norton and Martha Wagner, 1980, $2.25 postpaid from: White Crane P.O. Box3081 Eugene, OR 97403 Having recently rediscovered tempeh (the first time, someone told me it would taste like chicken!), The Soy of Cooking was, for Dear Cloud, Sounds like it was a gdod trip to China. Everybody seems to be heading East and I'm jealous. Ken Butti, co-author of The Golden. Thread, is leading a trip to China to extend his researches. I'm finding haiku in subway stations and trying to get the local TV to show four 10second public service announcements I made on solar-south-facing windows, south-facing porch as greenhouse, air collectors and breadbox hot water. Also tried to run down solar financing plans. San Francisco's Continental Savings & Loan seems to be it except for Ne"':' Jersey Mortgage Finance Corp. and ACCESS me, a welcome addition to the RAIN library., This 24-page booklet packs in recipes for such delectables as Tofu Mousaka, Tempeh Shish-kebabs and Tempeh "Sloppy Joes." I'm still hesitant about the "Nearly Chicken" Tempeh Salad. • In contrast to many tofu/tempeh cookbooks that read like an alchemist's brew, the ingredients used fc,r these recipes are familiar and easily come by. Reasonably priced,.The Soy of Cooking is a painless and imaginative way to add variety and nutritive content to your diet without forsaking your palate! -LS ---- -- ---- --- -- - - - - ----- - --- - - AGRICULTURE The Fruited Plain: The Story of American Agriculture, by W~lter Ebeling, 1980, 446 pp., $22.50 from: University of California Press 2233 Fulton St. Berkeley, CA 94720 Understanding how and why things got to be the way they are is an important part of developing a realistic alternative. The increasing trend towards a homogenized and centralized agriculture is a national problem, but the incredible diversity of country and people that make up.America's rural landsc.ape requires solutions that draw.on the strengths of local agriculture. The Fruited Plain offers a stunning view of the sweep of agriculture across the continent, region by region, from the early Native American farmers to the rise of the corporate May 1981 RAIN Page 3 their idea of splitting financing between the portion covered by the tax rebate and the remainder (short term for 40%, longer for the other 60%, for instance). Bankers here have been quoted as saying very few people are asking for loans for any kind of solar. Yours, George Mokray Cambridge, Mass. P.S. Wouldn't it be nice to have solar and conservation spots sponsored by AS/ISES [American Section, Int~rnational Solar Energy Society], or Solar Lobby, or (God help us) the Advertising Council on national TV? agribusiness complex. Ebeling begins with a vivid description of the land and native vegetation, then follows groups of settlers into the wilderness as they seek their new home. In many other areas,. immigrant groups settled in the country that most resembled their homeland. In other places, whole new cultures were created by groups trying to get as far away from civilization as possible. In both cases, the traditions and practices of the early settlers left an imprint on regional agriculture that continues to this day. Sometimes the traditions go back even further: Indian women soaked the corn seed for a few days before planting four seeds to a hill. As in every other detail of corn planting, the English colonists followed this Indian custom: One for the squirrel, one for the crow one for the cutworm and one to grow. for the Indians the custom derived from the ancient Maya, who attached religious significanc~to the four colors of their cornwhite, red, yellow, and blue-and to the four points of the compp.ss and the four gods who held up the corners of the earth and so influenced the wind and the rain. Ebeling describes the formation of our· . modern agricultural base, then describes the, predominant crops and techniques that are used in each region. Although he is clearly aware that there are some problems, he sometimes fails to closely examine the social and environmental implications of modern agricultural practices such as monocropping, pivot irrigation, mechanical harvesting, and pesticide use. Even so, these sections are a good, concise description of the components of agriculture in each part of the country. The book is heavily cross-referenced, and provides a good base for further research. -KB
Page4 RAIN May1981 Among the many visitors to Rainhouse in recent months we were pleased to greet noted scholar, researcher, philosopher and author Ivan Illich (see RAIN July '80). Illich was on his way from Germany, where he'd been teaching medieval history, to Mexico, - which he considers his home. He stopped over in Portland for one day, thanks to the people at Portland's Lewis and Clark College who invited him as their final speaker in a lecture series on education. (Jllich's Deschooling Society [1971] is a landmark work on the subject.) I went to Mexico when I was thrown out of Puerto Rico, of the directorship of the University, in 1960 because I wanted to go to a , place from where I could stop the coming of volunteers to Latin America. I did this for five years. I chose Mexico for obvious reasons. I couldn't imagine myself to work in a Central American banana republic without creating major upheavals. Mexico is large enough to absorb me, I think. . . • Upon arriving in Portland Illich asked to be taken to Rainhouse, where we enjoyed a short but fascinating conversation on a wide range of subjects. One of these was Shadow Work, his most recent book, which arrived here hot off the presses only two days before Illich himself. It is unusual to ask an author to review his own book. But Shadow Work represents a new dimension in Illich' s thinking and, as such, does not clearly follow from his other books. I asked Illich to tell us about the significance of Shadow Work. His remarks appear below, interspersed with some passagesfrom Shadow Work (indented], followed by his re-examination of the term "self-help," his thoughts on RAIN, and a brief commentary of my own. -MR . Shadow Work, by Ivan Illich, 1981, 152 pp., $5.95 paperback, $15.00 library edition from: Marion Boyars, Inc. 99 Main Street Salem, NH 03079 Illich on Illich [Shadow work] comprises most housework women do in their homes and apartments, the activities connected with shopping, most of the homework of students cramming for exams, the toil expended commuting to and from the job. It includes the stress of forced consumption, the tedious and regimented surrender to therapists, compliance with bureaucrats, the preparation for work to which one is compelled, and many of the activities usually labelled "family life".. . [It is] a unique form of bondage, not muc_h closer to servitude than to either slavery or wage labor. I have the impression that what I'm onto now is more important than what I've done before. I'll spend the next few years-as long as it takes me-to do something that I would call a history of scarcity. You'll find the first four chapters here are finished essays; the fifth one I put in without finishing it-it has a good bibliography. I was pushed into this by some articles on women's history... . I call the shadow economy the shadow of the market economy, which has grown up simultaneously with the market economy. If you look at libraries, you'll find hundreds of books about the history of wage work, which became the ideal-typical form of work with industrialization. You'll find practically no reference to the fact that simultaneously with the expansion of wage labor, so-:called productive work, which very quickly was looked at outside of the house, for which the man in overalls is the archetype, a second new , "There is no subsistence-oriented society in which there are human activities . ... By saying this I go slightly already beyond what's in this book." • type o.f activity, of work, developed, for which the woman in the domestic sphere became in the 19th century the archetype-activities which are totally dictated by the rhythm of consumption, which art> nt>,Pssarv for tht> ~rowth of the commodity economy, which are unpaid and as new as wage labor, because they represent
an unpaid act~vity which does not contribute to subsistence. I have coined [the term shadow economy] to speak about transactions which are not in the monetized sector and yet do not exist in pre-industrial society. . . . With the rise ,of this shadow economy I observe the appearance of a new kind of toil which is not rewarded by wages, and yet contributes nothing to the household's independence from the market. In other terms I claim that, in no period before the industrial period, either wage labor or its shadow (its complement, shadow work) existed, but people worked either as men or as women fundamentally together for the sustenance of the household. The eco- . nomic division between productive wage labor and domestic shadow May 1981 RAIN Page 5 Mark Anderson work did not exist before we moved into the industrial period. In and through the family the two complementary forms of industrial work were now fused: wage work and shadow work. Man and.woman, both effectively estranged from subsistence activities, became the motive for the other's exploitation for the profit of the employer and investments in capital goods . .Increasingly, surplus was not invested only in the so-called means of production. Shadow work itself became more and more capital-intensive. Investments in the home, the garage and the kitchen reflect the disappearance of subsistence from cont.--
Page 6 RAIN May 1981 the household, and the evidence of a growing monopoly of shadow work. There is no subsistence-oriented society, of which I know, in which there are human activities. Activities are either those of males or of females. Each society distributes thes~ concrete tasks in a different way. By saying this I go slightly already beyond what's in this book. You can characterize a society by describing this line which distinguishes the yang from the yin, the right hand from the left hand, men's activities from women's activities. None of this task distribution is natural-there is no activity which in some society is not attributed also to men, from labor at birth to bleeding at full moon. If this observation is correct-and I'm trying to launch research seminars in every major culture area to verify if I'm correct or not, but all my bibliographies so fa'r indicate that I'm correct-there is no such thing as a human activity known outside of industrial society; it's either male activity or female activity. One cannot really proceed without the other, therefore there is a mutual interdependence which also limits exploitation-there can be as much patriarchal repression or destruction of women as you want-there are limits baked into it through the fact that concrete tasks are distributed and women are economically just as important as men. Illich on Self-Help I am moved by concern over a trend which manifested itself during the seventies. During this time professional, economic and political interests converged on an intense expansion of the shadow economy. As ten years ago Ford, Fiat and Volkswagen financed the Club of Rome to prophesy limits to growth, so they now urge the need for self-help. I consider the indiscriminate propagation of self-help to be morally unacceptable.... Unless we clarify the distinction between this self-help and what I shall call vernacular life, the shadow economy will become the main growth sector during the current stagflation, the "informal" sector will become the main colony which sustains a last flurry of growth. And, unless the apostles of new life styles, of decentralization and alternative technology and conscientization and liberation make this distinction explicit and practical, they will only add some color, sweetener and the taste of stagna~t ideals to an irresistibly spreading shadow economy. I found this passage from Shadow Work somewhat bewildering. We at RAIN use the term "self-help" freely as one of several catchwords to describe what it is that we do-what appropriate technology, community self-reliance, even RAIN itself, are all about. Furthermore I know that Illich thinks highly of RAIN and the kinds of projects we participate in and chronicle. I asked him to elaborate his concern with "self-help." His response: Self-help is an America~ concept, which has been adopted during Illich on RAIN I've never before been to Portland. Portland for me meant a lot for the last five or six years. It meant RAIN-because RAIN from Portland-you laugh? !-arrived in Cuernavaca, or in Germany, wherever I am, not every month, but 10 months a year. Do you know what RAIN is? You do? It is by far the most effective means of access to know what is happening out there in a new world of little islands in English-speaking societies where people unplug themselves. RAIN is a magazine which comes from Portland ... [applause] . .. For most people, I assume, RAIN magazine-I'm using RAIN magazine because it is the best which I know in the world for bibliographical comment on books and activities by which people try to in one way or another unplug themselves from consumption, by which people try to get more pleasure, peace, joy out of doing There are no human concepts. Since there are no human activities but only male activities and female activities, there are no human concepts. All this is destroyed by the coming of genderless wage lrJ and the corresponding theoretically genderless shadow work ( _.11 very differential access to desirable wage-labor for men and for women). The creation of new wage labor inevitably also generates new shadow work. New social services inevitably increase the disciplined acquiescence of clients. What is worse: shadow workers can be used to create shadow work of others. . . . Sweden might now be leading the world in the attempt to employ disciplined shadow workers (volunteers) in its social services. Now, there are two entirely differentways in which society can react in front of the decrease of available salary-mass: either by transferring unemployed males to do the same kind of work which we reserved since the 19th century for women at home-which I call shadow work-shifting the responsibility for the education of children from universities to men and women unpaid at home or we can seek ways of reconquering the vernacular domain,-which is outside of the economy, which is not shadow work. By saying this I know that I am opening a Pandora's Box as I haven't done before in my life.... the later si:x;ties and seventies in mo~t other languages. It usually has a connotation which is very clear when the term is used. It means a projection of the division of productive and consumptive activities 'into the individual. Very frequently, in German, in French, in Italian, you refer to self-help, especially when you use the English word. What is meant is that the right hand produces for the left hand, that the individual himself gets split into a producer for his own needs which he then consumes. I see the interest of the industrial nation-state in controlling the "informal" sector. And I find the word "self-help" -which until a year ago I would have gladly and innocently used, only as a positive term-in~reasingly alienated and destroyed in its usefulness for me. When the United Nations, or governments, or professional schools speak about "self-help" they increasingly speak about an activity for which people must be educated-education for selfhelp. Doctors speak about it, educators speak about it, because we conceive of self-help as a projection into the acting subject of the division between production and consumption which is characteristic for commodity-intensive societies. Self-help increasingly is interpreted as an activity by which you-individual or group-generate, produce those values which you also then consume. Self-help is therefore used to designate state-controlled, professionally guided shadow work while, as far as I know, I, and most of my friends, tried to use that term.in order to indicate the voluntary, conscious return with modern means'to subsistence activities, at least partially, in our lives. things on their own rather than consuming and then having to work to generate the funds for consumption. For most people RAIN serves as a guide how to do it. For me RAIN is a major philosophical proof. I was convinced for years that people ... would increasingly try to unplug themselves from consumption. It is only after RAIN [and after bibliographies like those of Borremans (see RAIN April '80)] that I know that there are ten thousands of activities out there, each one different. We now have a list of about 1,000 bibliographies, and each bib1iography dealing with a different aspect of alternative technology or its social implications. Now, 1,000 bibliographies which are produced in a period of only 15 years represent an extraordinary activity out there, which is not noticed inside the establishment... . -Ivan Illich, from his address to Lewis and Clark College, March 12, 1981.
Roseland on Illich "By saying this I know that I am opening a Pandora's Box as I haven't done before in my life... ." -Ivan Illich, conversation at Rainhouse, March 12, 1981 Yes, indeed. As Illich himself readily acknowledges, his thinking in the last year has taken a significant turn from the direction of the last decade or so. It's an exciting turn. I also expect he'll take a fair amount of flak for it from many corners, from dismayed students to long-time critics. What's new with Illich? No longer does he symbolize de-institutionalization-seeing the problem with education as schools; with health, hospitals; with transportation, automobiles. Now he is asking even harder questions-harder to conceptualize as well as to answer-such as why we need education or transportation in the first place. Comprehension is difficult here because, notorious a scholar as he is, Illich is not a visionary. When asked about his ideal society he talks about "vernacular life" but cannot describe it. "f can't imagine it, but I can study it!" he told an audience here. May 1981 RAIN Page 7 A significant development is that Illich has discovered feminism, and in particular the ever-growing body of literature that makes up feminist history. Books like Ann Douglass' The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Avon Books; 1978) paved the way, through analyzing the development of activities such as housework, for Illich' s formulation of the notion of the shadow economy. "It is a terrible mistake, an idiotic mistake in which I'd also fallen," he told us, "to consider the domestic work of 19th century wives of wage-workers as nothing but a modern form of age-old reproductive activities. I challenge therefore the idea of Marxist 'reproduction' as much as the capitalist concept of 'privilege of consumption."' Illich himself provided the most su.ccinct summation of his growth in answering a question after his address here in Portland: "I have not spoken about de-institutionalizing education-I never used that word-I would perhaps have followed that line of thought 15 years ago. I now am trying to do everything I c_an to reduce the need for education, transportation, medical care."□□ -Mark Roseland ACCESS - ---------- ----- ---------- - -- - ENERGY - -- - -- ------------------- -- Lessons of the NASA Tech House (NAS 1.21:442), by Richard Allaway, 1980, 38 pp., from: • Superintendent of Documents U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, DC 20402 In 1976, NASA set out to build a house using every conservation technology they could think of, then had a family live there for a year to see how it worked. Some of the things they tried betray the engineering mindset of the people who designed it. For example, the house makes only minimal use of passive solar design techniques for space heating, while relying heavily on a complicated activ solar system coupled to a water source heat pump. Other ideas, however, are worth a second look. The most revealing part of this study was the reaction of one member of the family living in the house: One of the main things that struck us about living in the Tech house was that a technically designed, very efficient house is not really the total answer to the question of saving energy for the entire family. We didn'! make as efficient use of the Tech UPPER MANIFOLD From The Solar Water Book COLLECTOR HEAT EXCHANGER house as we might have, partly because some of the features didn't fit into our lifestyle very well. I would like to see a lot more attention devoted to the way in which the technological systems that we are going to use to meet the energy crunch interact with people's habits, the way they live, what they think about their house, and so on. -KB The Solar Water Heater Book: Building and Installing Your Own System, by Roger Bryenton, Ken Cooper and Chris MattockA...1980, 69 pp., from: Renewable Energy in Canada 415 Parkside Drive Toronto, Ontario M6R 227 CANADA This is one of the best books I've seen on building your own solar water heater. They give complete materials lists, detailed instructions, and drawings to help you build a thermosyphon system or an active system. Included are all those little tricks that make things easier to build and make things work better once the system is in place. The information on start-up and troubleshooting is invaluable. -Gail Katz
Page 8 RAIN May 1981 Access cont. Canadian Renewable Energy News, monthly, $14.00/yr. from: CREN Publishing Lt4. P.O. Box 4869, Station E Ottawa, Ontario KlS 5Jl CANADA Each month, hundreds of periodicals from around the world land in the Rainhouse mailbasket. In order to be well informed but not overwhelmed, we must plow through the basket selectively, and those few publications w~ich ~re unusually thorough or-thol\ghtprovoking always get plucked out well'a.head of the rest. The Canadian Renewable Energy News is one of these few. Its very readable articles, columns, and reviews provide an excellent means of keeping up with technical and political developments in solar, wind, hydro, biomass, and conservation, both in Canada and'the U.S. The Canadian focus can be a real advantage to U.S. readers, both in reminding them of innovative projects going on north of the border and in providing con.:. trasts and comparisons between methods of handling important issues in the two coun- - ------------- NUKES - --~------- - - --- ---- ----- Secret Fallout: Low-Level Radiation from Hiroshima to Three Mile Island, by Ernest Sternglass, 1981, 306 pp., $5.95 from: McGraw-Hill 1221 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY10020 "The Silent Toll: Uncovering the Deadly Consequences of Three Mile Island," by Thomas Pawlick, Harro,wsmith No. 28 (June 1980), $2.00 from: Harrowsmith • Camden East Ontario KOK lJ0 CANADA Dr. Ernest Sternglass, professor of radiation physics at the University of Pittsburgh, be~ gan his scientific career in the late 1940s, a protege of Albert Einstein. As he told Har:- rowsmith associate editor Thomas Pawlick last year, he was imbued in those days with the promise of the peaceful atom. "There wasn't a decent person . .. , scientist or engineer, who wasn't looking forward to the great glory of the atomic age when eJectricity would be too cheap to meter and we would no longer have air pollution. ... It just never occurred to me that anyone might build a reactor that would leak. ... 11 All that changed for Sternglass when he tries, like performance standards for renewable energy products; grassroots/industry conflict and cooperation; and government incentives or disincentives to development of renewables. Unfortunately, the biggest barrier facing Canadians (as summarized by CREN columnist Jeff Passmore) is one we all instantly recognize: "solar is still not taken seriously in this country-largely because energy is not taken seriously.... Canadians still use the wall plug pretty much at random. And Ottawa woqld like to keep it that way." -JF 1980 Montana.Renewable Energy Almanac, by Nancy McLane, 1980, 214 pp., and The Montana Renewable Energy Handbook, by Jan Konigsberg, 1980, 144 pp., both free from: Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation 32 S. Ewing Helena, MT 59601 This is the kind of thing that every state should be doing. Montana Energy Almanac is a good summary of the energy issues that began to study statistical evidence of health damage resulting from low-level radiation. Beginning with the fallout from atomic bomb testing, he later moved on to the effects of nuclear reactor emissions. Again and again, his research uncovered the same ugly story: increases in spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, infant death, birth defects, leukemia, respiratory problems and thyroid disor- ·ders following in the path of nuclear contamination. An ardent supporter of the nuclear industry now found himself transformed into one of its most vocal and effective critics. The story of Ernest Sternglass over the past two decades has been one of continuous statistical warfare: he flings his numbers at the nuclearestablishment which, in turn, flings them back ·with wholly different sets of conclusions attached. George Wald, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine, comments in his introduction to Secret Fallout that Sternglass has an "exuberantway" with . statistics which has sometimes drawn criticism, evert from fellow scientists who otherwise supp~rt him on nuclear issues. Be that as it may, the clear message, both of Secret Fallout and·of Pawlick's excellent Harrowsmith article on Three Mile Island, is that the government and nuclear industry have long had a serious interest in silencing or discrediting him. Because Sternglass sees low-level radiation as a threat to the body's immune response system, his opponents' attitude toward information provides him with a disturbing analogy: "you could say that freedom of information is society's immune response mechanism against dangerous social o =~MER \ OPEAA8SE OUT.51DE VEN"T ~ Oft ~ ''"""' i.= =~OR ~ INSU1,ATED ROOF ENE~G'I EFFICIENT GREENMOU5E Landscape De~ign I HOU!IE. trends [and] the irresponsible use of atomic power is in some ways like a cancer cell in society. If you cover up and suppress the news of its presence, the body won't respond to control the cancer until it's too late. 11 Secret Fallout is important, both as the story of a courageous figure in the anti-nuclear struggle and as a historical record of two decades of debate over the role of the atom. Unfortunately, the author sometimes gets bogged down in his statistical analyses when the real drama lies in the fight for the free flow of information. That drama is better captured in Pawlick's Harrowsmith article, which also summarizes what Sternglass has to say about the long-term impacts of the Three Mile Island accident and provides one of the best layperson's analyses I've seen on the controversy surrounding low-level radia-· tion. Both Sternglass and Pawlick are well worth reading; if you lack either time or money, opt for Pawlick. - JF The People of Three Mile Island, interviews and photographs by Robert Del Tredici, 1980, 127 pp., $7.95 from: Sierra Club Books 530 Bush Street San Francisco, CA 94108 One week after the accident, Claii:,Hoover, whose farm is near the Three Mfle Island plant, saw his dairy cattle begin to abort and die. In all, he lost seven cows and thirteen calves. A few months later, local resident Jane Lee
Montana is facing over the next few years. It begins with a concise description of the energy flows and trends within the state, then covers the full range of proposed projects, legislation, and agencies and organizations affecting Montana's energy future. Page for page, the Renewable Energy Handbook is by far the best introduction to renewable ener:gy technology I've seen. Its descriptions of small-scale conservation, solar, biomass, and electrical generation technology are up to date, complete, and very well written. Every sentence is packed with useful information, and Konigsberg has included a series of good bibliographi~ each type_of system. There is also a superb 24-page section detailing some of the systems,that have been built as part of Montana's Renewable Energy Program. -KB Landscape Design That Saves Energy, by Anne Simon Moffat and Marc Schiler, 1981, 223 pp., $9.95 from: William Morrow and Co. }05 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 Landscaping to save energy is a voice from began to notice trees in the vicinity which were totally defoliated with no discernible cause. She also found it curious that even as late as the summer of the following year, robins, bluejays, cardinals and finches seemed to be avoiding the area. Henry and Nancy Gilbert, who live near the plant and raise exotic birds for pet stores, returned home on the evening of May 16, 1979, and found that 416 of their birds had suddenly died. The experts they consulted could offer no satisfactory explanation. From The People of Three Mile Island the past; the earliest home builders recognized the many uses of plants. They respected the local climate an:d understood the significant role landscaping could play in designing shelters to meet even the severest conditions. Contemporary architecture has removed itself horn the environment through the use of artificial injections of oilbased climate controls. Moffat and Schiler have compiled knowledge from the past with advances in our understanding of physical processes in our environment to help us meet the future of ever-tightening resources. Clear concise diagrams and explanations make this book a useful guide for the homeowner. Lists of species for each broad set of climatic conditions give the reader an appropriate shopping list from which to choose, and tables of solar angles and tangents and a map of climatic conditions complete the background information necessary. One point that wasn't stressed as much as I had hoped is the importance of using native , plants, both from an environmental and energy efficiency point of vievV Not enough caution is used with regard to introducing plants into habitats in which they are not native. As a result we are plagued with hundreds of species which have become invasive •Photographer Robert Del Tredici introduces us to a cross-section of the people who lived through (and are still living through) the bizarre events surrounding the accident at Three Mile Island. His pictures and their words remind us that for many people on the scene, the real trauma began after the cooling towers disappeared from the front pages and the CBS Evening News. More than anything I've read in the two years since the accident, this book conveys the frustration experienced by many people in the towns May 1981 RAIN Page 9 weeds. On th~ other hand, many of the plants which are used horticulturally are not suited to the environment in which they are introduced and a great deal of time and energy must be spent to provide a hospitable environment for them. Californians learned the hard way when drought forced them to think more carefully about their garden's moisture requirements. Read this book, use native species, and start saving up to 30 percent of your home's heating and cooling requirements. -Cathy Macdonald HEDOE PROTECTII-JG 1-iOME ENTIUINCE FIIDM HOT WINlll., and on the farms of southeastern Pennsylvania when faced with an often invisible enemy posing uncertain long-term consequences in the midst of official cover-up and denials of damage. That people like Clair Hoover and the Gilberts should have been deeply affected is not surprising. They have h~d clear evidence, literally at their doorsteps, that things are not as they should be. For many of their neighbors the situation.is much less clear. "They think you have a screw loose or something if you go out and protest," says Georgia Luckinbill, a registered nurse who lives seven miles from the plant. "They think that everyone who gets all excited over this is over-reacting." Her experience is echoed by Mickey Minnich, football coach at a local high school: "you see the light and they don't see it and you wonder why they don't understand what's going on." It is the invisibility factor, as Del Tredici observes, which has been "the real wild card in the deck." For people like Luckinbill and Minnich, events which cannot be directly seen, smelled or tasted, and are repeatedly explained away by officials-, have taken on an eery "Alice in Wonderland" quality. For many of their neighbors, the fact that their senses have not been directly touched has only left them insensitive. "I wish you could smell it," says Minnich. "I tell you what, if that would have been chlorine on March 28,. they would have evacuated everybody because you could smell it. It's irritating.... People would be coughing, vomiting. I wish it would make you vomit." -JF
Page 10 RAIN May 1981 Last month I was out touring projects that were funded by the Oregon Department of Energy's Small Grants Program. The trip took me across the state to the Idaho border and back again. Everywhere I traveled I was impressed by the people and their'work. Meeting Roger Mackaness ahd Clif Graf, recipients of a grant for their micro-hydro installation, was an especially eye-opening experience for me. They led me in turn to Scott Sylva of Northwest Water Power Systems who supplied me with more information and in his turn directed me to Jim McPhee' s lengthy article on mini-hydro in the New Yorker(Feb. 23, 1981). Additional resources for this article were Chris Wood's article "Dam Gold Rush" in the March issue of Canadian Renewable Energy News, and the books accessed below. protestors in rural Minnesota. I have some heartfelt criticisms of any prerogative granted to anyone to condemn a person's land for the dubious "common good" private inte'rests determine. Standing by Trapper Creek with Clif, whose family had homesteaded that stretch of beauty generations ago, I was riled to think of someone else staking a claim to it. But if an acceptable feasibility study of the generating potential of the creek were submitted, the courts could rule in favor of condemnation. Trapper Creek would hardly be worth the effort, primarily because the cost to capitalize on the water flow, compared with the kilowatts yielded, make such an enterprise for investment purposes less than cost effective. Now Clif and Roger are not looking to make a killing off Trapper MINING THE WATERS: fl'i cashing in ·on by Carlotta Collette ,The scene was classic Cascade woods (all hydro articles begin with water-side reminiscences). I was bruising my new no-nonsense Oregon rubber boots slopping my way down a cat road with Roger and Clif. We were en route to the low-head micro-hydro installation they are developing in c;lif's mile run of Trapper Creek on Larch Mountain. They were describing their project, pointing out the impoundment, the new track of pipe that would conduct the water to the turbine, and the old ram that had pumped irrigation water up to Clif's farm for years. Their enthusiasm was catching but the trials and tribulations of permit procedures and other bureaucratic balderdash kept slipping into the conversation: "And ya know, pretty near anyone can come in here and get the water rights to develop the hydro-electric potential of this creek or any other, private or public owned. If ya don't want to sell it to them they can take ya to court and condemn the creek. They can claim eminent domain and just take it." Roger had just triggered a knee-jerk reaction in me. I'd spent a little time, previous to moving to Oregon, among the powerline • , ' Hydro-power Creek. They're just gathering a little homemade electricity. So the scale of project they're engaged in (micro-hydro), and their heavy reliance on scrounging and hard work, becomes feasible even with very low head and flow rate. Larger hydro installations (called mini-hydro), particularly those operated pre-World War II and dormant since then, are the real little gold mines of this energy rush. • Two federal programs make it so. The Energy Act of 1978 compels utilities to purchase electricity generated by smaller producers. Moreover they are required to pay these producers the "avoided rate"-the cost the utilities would otherwise have had to pay to expand their own electrical generating capacity. For added encour- . agement, 1978 also gave us the Windfall Profits Tax offering an energy tax credit (11 %) on top of the standard investment tax credit (10%) which combine to significantly offset the costs of recycling deteriorated dams. Numerous businesses were started just after the Act took effect. I call them the "just add water" industries. With undeveloped hydro-power's calculated potential figured at 470 billion kilowatt hours (not including the potential of micro-hydro) and the "avoided rate" paid by utilities set at anywhere from 2 cents to 8 cents per kilowatt hour, it is not difficult to recognize the source of the glint in speculators' eyes. Jim McPhee in his article for the New Yorker puts it this way: "One did not have to be a theoretica~ physicist to figure out that if water was falling, say, twenty-five feet, where the annual average flow was four hundred cubic feet per second, it could turn modest turbines, that could turn small generators, that would earn, at six cents a kilowatt hour,·about two hundred thousand dollars a year." Given an initial retrofit cost of anywhere from several thousand to several hundred thousand dollars (depending on the scale of installation, the condition of the existing equipment, and the inventiveness of the entrepreneur) these operations could turn a fairly quick profit. Since venture capital for putting mini-hydro generated power on line is not readily available to •any but the moneyed interests, the unwashed public could be left out once again. Moreover, in all likelihood the small business hy- , dro-broker will in turn be bought out by the next size up until we see the sort of economic concentration already evidenced in the solar industry. But this prognosis is only one side of the story. Certainly there
are "East Coast Companies" scouring the countryside in search of workable water wheels, but much of the hydro under development is not underwritten by large corporations. Often small partnerships and families operate dams. Most of these projects did not start with huge outlays of cash. They are not managed by "unscrupulous profit mongers in glass-walled office complexes." They are "just folk" who have either homesteaded the site, purchased it on a mortgage, or leased it from its owner (in some cases the state or federal government). The motive is often less one of greed than of security and independence. The ethic is pure Protestant work. Instead of huge expenditures for new equipment and hired help, the site is worked by the owners themselves with mostly reconditioned parts and a lot of study and research. Interested? Well, first of all, this is no place for novices. Used equipment is often the wrong equipment and even the distributors may not know the details of site specificity. Do your homework (see accompanying access), get all the free help you can, and still be prepared to spend quite a bit of money. Women and minorities have an advantage here (at least until the budget cutting takes effect). Special federal programs have been designed to draw us into businesses, especially the energy industries. (Contact the Small Business Administration, 1441 L St., Washington, DC 20416). McPhee describes one family's concern that lists the women in that family as all of its officers. Make use of whatever incentives you can. (Call your region or state energy office for details). Some of these only aid the big investor seeking tax shelters but a few can be taken as direct credits and don't require overly complicated tax reporting. Remember the economics of cost versus returns when determining the scale of your project. Micro-hydro is probably not going to make you rich overnight, but it won't leave you poor either. Homesteaders are finding that a micro-hydro installation can provide them with all the electricity they need, plus a nice little income when they run the meter backward, selling their surplus to the power company. I've become aware of instances where several families develop a small stream's potential together and spread the electricity among them. This is especially practical where the cost of utility hookups would be exorbitant and the cost of storing excess electricity equally so. Often the small towns surrounding abandoned dams reflect the disuse of the dam itself. Community investment, in rescuing the facility, can spark and support revitalization of other parts of the town as well. Even larger cities can benefit. Portland is currently conducting a feasibility study to determine the hydro-generating capacity of its Bull Run facility. Locally controlled hydro-electric power combined with conservation offers the possibility of stabilizing utility costs. Communities can become electricity producers May 1981 RAIN Page 11 • 1 - l ---- - .., ·- -- - ---1- ··---,--···- - ,--- - \ - - -- - -T- • ·_} :.:_c,1- ·:- ·, ~-=-1·~~--l·J :-J r__ ·T~;-2- - i ·- . t \ I ----·r- -- • i ---· ·-, --·-----~ ----·· {=~~:-~~~r1±\:~~ . 1 ,-- -~; : • ' ·, ' : • : : : ' ' ' :;.; : ,-?.:..: From Micro-Hydro Dev. in Idaho rather than just consumers, effectively disconnecting themselves from utility dependency. This amended scenario lends itself less to the kind of claim-jumping shenanigans already manif~st in the move to hydro-monopolizing. Neighbor-to-neighbor transactions can rely on mutual respect and fairness rather than condemnation court proceedings. People like Clif and Roger can strike a bargain for barter, eliminating escalating water rights purchase costs. The result is a more stable and economical resource for everyone. The hydro-electric generating capabilities within the state of New Hampshire alone can replace three nuclear power plants. The Pacific Northwest and the Tennessee Valley have long histories of reliance on hydropower (see "Northwest Power Play I and II," RAIN Vol. VII, Nos. 4 and 5) only recently shadowed by the nuclear industry. But our goal must be more than just trying to get hydro back on line. We need to refine and disseminate the technology to be better able to exploit the energy potential while sustaining the ecologies of our rivers and streams. We need to create more incentives for micro-installations, while limiting subsidies which facilitate corporate takeover of the industry. We need to establish priorities that demonstrate our commitment to the long range rewards of locally controlled and responsive technologies rather than the instant gratification of a technology of greed. No small agenda for the Reagan years. We have, as it were, our work cut out for us. OD ACCESS: MICRO-HYDRO A Guide to Micro-Hydro Development in Alaska (also: Oregon, Washington, and Idaho), 1980, from: each state's Energy Office, or: Region 10, Dept. of Energy 1992 Federal Bldg. 915 Second Ave. Seattle, WA 98174 These books contain the full text of the NCAT hydro publication (listed here), plus all of the water rights and energy regulations of the respective states. They also include a section on federal assistance programs. Each has art·expanded bibliography covering periodicals, articles, and pamphlets as well as books. Rumor has it that the Bonneville Power Administration is combining all of these into a larger Guide to Micro-Hydro in the Pacific Northwest, which sounds like a good idea, but isn't available yet. We'll keep you posted. -Gail Katz Micro-Hydro Power: Reviewing an Old Concept, by Ron Alward, Sherry Eisenbart and John Volkman, 1979, 60 pp., $5.25 from: National Technical Information Service U.S. Department of Commerce 5285 Port Royal Road Springfield, VA 22161 I used to live in the vicinity of the Trinity Alps near a stream that came down off a ridge, and I always wondered about generating my own electricity there. Three members of the NCAT Technical Research Staff have written this good, concise introduction to small-scale hydropower which will set you on the road toward doing it rather than just wondering. The most valuable section of the book shows how to determine just how much energy you have in your stream and how much of that energy you can plug into. It also includes an introduction to equipment, a list of manufacturers, a section on economics, another on government regulations, and an excellent bibliography. So contact your local government, find out what permits you'll need and get to know your stream. -Gail Katz
Page 12 RAIN May 1981 The Village As Solar Ecology: Proceedings of The New Alchemy /Threshold Generic Design Conference, April 16-21, 1979, 1980, 134 pp., $22.50 from: The New Alchemy Institute 237 Hatchville Road East Falmouth, MA 02536 Ecology is providing an intellectual framework that can link the polymer physics of a materials scientist to the electronic information of the computer specialist, to structural forms of the architect, to experts in diverse energy systems, food culture, and waste recycling and ultimately to the sociologist, anthropologist and artist who speak for the human condition. -John Todd, ecologist & designer All these disciplines are represented in the proceedings of The Village As Solar Ecology, inspired by the late Margaret Mead. Sixteen New Alchemists and twenty-one outside participants combined to form an incredible array of talent and expertise. Together they discussed village energy, architectural·concepts and ecological cycles along with the historical roots of solar village ecology and the future of sustainable cultures. Paul Sun's essay on Feng-Shui, the ancient Chinese theory of village siting, and Ron Zweig's article on village-scale aquaculture are particularly interesting. The final section of the book consists of initial design plans for solar villages, one each in New York, Maine, Colorado and California. Integration of systems has always been the strength of New Alchemy's work. As suggested by the quotes and drawings reprinted here, this is an inspiring volume of technical expertise and social vision. -MR The Village as Solar Ecolog In the long run, energy probably isn't a terribly interesting problem, because we already know conceptually how to solve it, and are starting to do so in practice. If we get out in one piece, then we can get on with some of the really interesting problems: like water, soil fertility, food/population, climatic change, ecological resilience, social justice, and peace. In energy, technic is in a sense trivial: full of delights and traps for the techno-twit, but no longer full of deep, scary conceptual gulfs. But using energy to worthy ends, for right livelihood, is profoundly difficult, and is not a technical issue at all. -Amory Lovins, physicist Village Food Production. Ecological Integration Alternate streets or neighborhood cores are redesigned to house small l1sh farms. raised bed vegetable and berry production and lru11 and nut lrees Some of the space may be for community food gardening. wh1fe lrees. aquat,c fac1ht1es and ••• growing beds could be leased lo urban farmers who lend and locally market 1r,e crops The model of the sustainable city need not be built all of a piece. It need not involve a radically different process from the way communities get planned and built today. The critical aspect is the disposition of land, building guidelines and the design of life support systems. Ecological communities are possible right now, and the construction of some modest first examples might help to restore some of our lost hope. Visionary eco-designers·need to join forces with number-crunching analysts and community leaders to create prototypes. Our more enlightened entrepreneurs, fat cats and politicians need to commit themselves to the idea. -Sim Van der Ryn, architect & ecodeveloper In the union re-vision the r, structures itse1 structure itself tant with this J rise of the ecol appearance of • miniaturizatio -William J It's not intellectually tr what holds society togeth able and you can't manuf; -L. Hunter Lovins, sc ••Village agriculture could take many forms and develo broad-based market economy. Its first priority is two-fo its people and to restock the biological community rendt food. -Colleen Armstrong, biological control specialist
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