I stood right  next to the door where the drum music poured in until finally common sense had us  close the door, persuading the music to travel the longer distance through the hall to us!  At the Green Fox Energy stall we encouraged children to ice fairy cakes with pictures of green foxes, leaving the parents to hear about the window of opportunity to support our local energy co-op.  The day of the co-op launch being the day of the Green Light Festival and the last day of the LEAF grant funding that enabled the co-op to have experts to help set it up.  It is hoped to raise sufficient funding by the selling of shares (with a potential interest rate of 5-6%) to install the PV panels to be up and running by July when the FIT degresses (falls in value).  The community roof owners will be able to use as much electricity as the PV generates, the rest of the electricity will be sold back to the grid as renewably produced energy, and the profit from this will be shared between the community roof owner and the Green Fox Energy Co-op.  Being a 'not for profit' group, this profit will go towards the share holders interest  and the next local energy project.

So whilst the Leicester based Green Fox Co-op are looking for investors,  we in the Harborough Transition are looking to flesh out the successful initial proposal that won us the £10,000 Sustainable Community Big Lottery grant.  The initial proposal brought together lots of ideas needed to move Harborough towards becoming more sustainable in the face of climate change challenges (extreme hot and cold weather, droughts and floods).  This is particularly with vulnerable groups in mind, for example the young and the old.   Learning from experiences at the Green Fox Co-op and the Leicester Whetstone Community Allotment, I am hoping to help champion Eco schools and local food/land symbiosis with sustainability.  Earlier this week, I contacted Lubenham Primary School to ask for help to brain storm ideas that the Harborough Group of Primary Schools may wish to be part of.  Today I 'interviewed' the Whetstone Allotment Team to garner their experience and advice. 

The next date for the diary is the 12th of April for a planning meeting at the Angel Hotel to put these ideas together for the next part of the Big Lottery Fund grant application.

The Green Light Festival is on this Saturday at the DeMontfort University, Queens Building, in Leicester from 10-5 or 6.  You must go as this will be where the Leicester Transition's energy group are looking for people interested in shares in their new Green Fox Co-operative..  There has been a flurry of social enterprises appearing over the last year.  These have been  taking advantage of grants specifically to finance experts to support the setting up.  The flavour of the enterprises are to help local communities become sustainable as climate changes occur, and the production of oil and gas are increasingly difficult to sustain as global supplies are now dwindling.  The rush to set up these energy enterprises have been driven by government incentives  - the renewable heat incentive (RHI) and the feed in tariffs (FIT).  One dead line passed on the 3rd of March when the FIT fell from 43p to 21p per Kw hour electricity sold back to the grid, and the next dead line is 31st March as the the RHI closes.  The next dead line is in July when the FIT reduces again, making the selling of co-operative shares less conducive as the interest on the shares falls.

In the Leicester Green Fox sustainable energy co-operative, so newly formed, we have been doing financial modeling this week.  With the expert help from Eithie from the Share Energy coo-op, we looked at the production of Kw hours electricity from a combination of PV systems on four large roof spaces in Leicester that ranged from 50 to 175Kw hours each.  Share interest rates might typically be obtained in the range of 1.8 to 5.5% (a clever computer package works this out!). Now we need to go back and review the roofs for 25 year durability, 'D' energy ratings of the buildings checked for, look for quotes from installers and get full technical assessment for each roof, contact the DNO to check the local grid can cope with the extra influx of electricity if necessary, and prepare the share offers. 

Why am I writing about this on the HarboroughTransition web site?  Because  sharing of ideas and support between different groups helps strengthen local enterprises.  This week the Harborough Transition group who have recently obtained a £10,000 Big Lottery Grant will be fleshing out many ideas on our wish list of projects in Harborough that will make Harborough such a green and good place to live in! 

Come to the Green Light Festival for an update on all this innovation!  My part?  Making fairy cakes decorated with our memorable logo - another good incentive for checking all this out!

“Let’s press some apple juice” went up the cry!

Our Food buying group bought a share in the press that had been commissioned by Transition Leicester for their food group. Using this press we successfully hosting our first Apple day event in Market Harborough and were amazed by the buzz that was created around this tool.

Buoyed by the feedback from visitors to the pressings at both the Lubenham Scarecrow day and our Apple day the group decided to raise the money to purchase a press for Market Harborough and our local communities.

For those that don’t know, Harborough used to have some very large Orchards providing the town with fresh fruit and indeed the last few remnants can be seen at the disused garage site off Newcombe Street (Earmarked for building) and on the field adjacent to the new housing estate on Farndon road.

The question of where to source the press was never asked when the press built for Transition Leicester ticked all of the boxes for us and the Transition philosophy. A press constructed by local talented tradesmen from locally sourced wood.

At this time Transition Harborough was tremendously lucky to be awarded a grant from Kambe Events Limited who are the company behind the organisation of a locally hosted, Secret, green cultural music and arts festival. This has enabled us to move quickly to place an order for this press while we raise the remaining cash for the press from our local community through the selling of shares.

We contacted our wood elf and were invited over to view their mystical workshop where the magic is worked as trees are lovingly crafted into kitchens and in our case, apple presses.

On our visit we found that having sold a few presses previously that they were actually building a batch of ten of which a couple had been sold already, so our press will have 7 siblings looking for homes if anyone is interested. We also heard that ours would not be made from local Oak as the trees felled by licence on the grounds of Brooksby College in Melton had not arrived in time and so ours is to be made of FSC certified wood instead.

Gillian and Judith were in their element and would have rolled their sleeves up and started work on our press if Rupert, our personal wood Elf, had let them so we decided to agree terms for the purchase of the press and call it a night.

For those of you that are interested in having a share (or maybe a share of a share if you want to split it with a neighbor) of the Apple Press there are still a few remaining to be snapped up. The price is £53.50 which will give you the right to book to have the press at your home for a couple of day a year, remember, you can press other fruits and do not just have to press juice to make Cyder. You can press Pears for Perry’s or Plums for Plum Wine or Cherries for Cherry wine or you could just drink the juice.

We are all very excited about our new arrival and hope that you will join us in the happy times that will be had at future Apple days and other events, who knows. One day we may be Wassailing Apples in our own town community Orchards again.

Dare to dream the dream!

On Friday the third in a series of four BIG events was held to update the 30 communities that have got through the first competitive round of the “Communities Living Sustainably” fund. It was hoped that by the end of the day that we would come away knowing exactly what we need t do to put together the information for the next stage.

I was driven down by Diana Cook of the Rural Community Council as the trains were not practicable and was pleasantly surprised to find the venue was BRE (Buildings Research establishment) in Watford. I secretly hoped that we would be able to go and have a look around the experimental buildings there.

We knew in advance who our allocated BIG “Enablers” were and ours was the very lovely and competent Heidi Seary of the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens who I had met when I contacted them about the disused garage site off Newcombe Street.

The crux of the day seemed to be introductions to the main people and organisations involved in supporting the bid process which are NEF (New Economics Foundation), BRE, Groundwork, Energy Savings Trust and FCFCG and an introduction to a tool that gauges your communities’ sustainability. This tool is a fancy Excel spread sheet that generates a radar graph based upon your preparedness to a number of criteria including flood risk evaluation and mitigation and Biodiversity.

During lunch, Lewis Knight who was demonstrating the software took a group of us for a 

lightning tour of the buildings on the site. The homes there ranged from a modular design to a Hempcreate TM Code 4 house that only cost £66,000 to build that could easily reach Code 5 with the addition of some Solar panel. This building makes a mockery of the PLC building companies claims that improving the Thermal performance of buildings will cost too much. In a almost perverse juxtaposition of this Barret PLC had built a Code 6 house there which we were only told cost well into six figures, it’s almost as if they were trying to prove that decently performing homes need to cost a lot!

For those that do not know the Code system is a series of incrementally more demanding building standards to raise the thermal performance of new build homes. We are currently at Code 4 and the Code 6 homes should be Carbon Neutral which will be achieved through the use of renewables. There is another standard that can be built to which is Passive Haüs, a standard that aims to build homes that require little of no heating… which is better, I will let you decide.

An interesting building is the Princes Trust house, when bemoaning the styling of modern

homes Prince Charles was challenged to come up with a design and here it is, we were surprised to hear that despite his environmental credentials that the building is only a Code 4. Personally I am not sure that I like its psudo colonial style?

By the end of the event we were unfortunately none the wiser on the work that will need to be undertaken for the final deliverables and the application form which is frustrating as we are coiled, ready and waiting.

A bit of disappointing news, our bid for assistance from this fund was turned down!

The feedback basically said that our project was not large enough as they were looking for projects in the scale of Baywind. Our proposal was for a mass proliferation of micro generation as most planning applications for large turbines in this area are turned down.

Will this all change with the new planning proposals going through parliament?

Onwards and upwards, we have a meeting with the Big Lottery on Friday to find out what the deliverables are for the Communities living sustainably fund.

Hi all,

Well after over a hundred hours of volunteer time by members of Transition Harborough and volunteers from VASL and Welland Park Community College our bid Expression of Interest has gone through to the second round. We hear that 217 communities applied and the shortlist, of which we are one, is of 30 communities.

We not have just over three months in which to prepare a fully worked up project proposal to get through to the main funding of upto £1 million.

Here is the press release from our partner the Rural Community Council.

Darren

Read the Big Lottery press release here with the list of the 29 other communities selected.

Big Lottery Funding Celebration

The Rural Community Council and Transition Harborough are celebrating their successful joint bid to the Communities Living Sustainably Fund from the Big Lottery.

The two organisations in partnership with Severn Trent Water, Leicestershire County Council, Seven Locks Housing, Voluntary Action South Leicestershire and Welland Park Community College have been granted £10,000 to work in partnership with local people, councils, schools, businesses, and voluntary groups to draw up detailed plans for how their community can become greener with a chance to gain a further £1m to deliver their project ideas.

Fuel poverty, rising food prices and scarce resources are just some of the issues in the sights of BIG’s Communities Living Sustainably programme which aims to inspire people to adapt the way they live, work and connect together to reap financial, environmental and health gains.

Rural Community Council (Leicestershire and Rutland) is one of only 30 organisations chosen across the country to work with partners in Market Harborough to develop plans to build energy efficient homes, retro fitting for housing association properties, training people in energy and monetary efficiency, promoting green roofs for schools and businesses, growing and sharing food locally water saving and promotion of local crafts.

Later in the year, ten of the 30 schemes will be chosen to receive up to £1 million to deliver their ideas. The learning gained from the ten funded projects over a five-year period will be shared with other communities in England to inform and influence others on how communities can become more sustainable.

Mick McGrath, Big Lottery Fund Head of Region for East Mildands, said: “We want to support local communities to make greener choices to improve their quality of life and help them to become resilient to the changing environment. The small steps being taken by these projects will have a big impact and will hopefully spark a change in behaviour that makes sustainable living second nature to us all.”

To help them achieve their goals, a partnership led by Groundwork UK and including BRE, Federation of City Farms, Energy Savings Trust and nef has been appointed to deliver support, advice and guidance to the community partnerships. They will also establish a learning support network to capture and share learning with other communities and to inform the future development of investments in BIG’s Sustainable and Resilient Communities strategy. (www.communitieslivingsustainably.org.uk)

Diana Cook from the Rural Community Council said ‘This is an exciting project and a great opportunity to reinforce the work of the RCC Communities Cutting Carbon Project and further enhance great partnership working with the community in Harborough. The experience of partners and enthusiasm of the community will drive the project towards its £1m goal’

Editors Notes

Communities Living Sustainably is part of the Big Lottery Fund’s £50m Sustainable and Resilient Communities strategy that aims to encourage behaviour change amongst individuals and communities so they can cope better with the environmental, economic and social impacts of a changing climate. Vulnerable people, including those on low-incomes or older people, are less likely to cope with the negative effects of climate change such as floods and heat waves or severe cold weather.

For more information on the Big Lottery

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888 Out of hours media contact: 07867 500 572 Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

The Rural Community Council (Leicestershire & Rutland) is a charity that works to support communities in rural areas to undertake projects that enhance the quality of life. To this end we are involved with a wide range of projects and issues, all of which are becoming of increasing importance.

For more information on the local project contact Diana Cook 0116 2689706 dcook@ruralcc.org.uk

Hot on the tail of the "Communities Living Sustainably" we heard about this fund which is offering more of a mentoring service with a pick up of professional fees rather than a traditional grant, something that we consider equally important to the furthering of our ambitions to Establish an Energy Services Company here in Market Harborough.

Here are the guts of our application:

2.     About your experience of working together

Please provide evidence that your group has a track record of working together on community-based activities. It doesn’t have to be energy-based. If you are a local authority applying on behalf of communities, please give evidence of successful community empowerment projects you have previously delivered. (350 words maximum)

Transition Town Market Harborough (TTMH) has hosted many events over the last four years since our formation, which include a showing of “Cuba, the power of Community” with a talk by Megan Quinn who was the films producer. TTMH also arranged for Megan who was from the USA to do a mini tour of the UK with 8 events. TTMH co-Hosted Richard Heinberg, fellow of the Post –Carbon Institute and leading international energy expert and also arranged a 3 event tour for him.

In October 2011 we organised our first annual Apple day event for the community to promote local food and to raise interest in shares for a community press we have commissioned from a local tradesman.

The Group works closely with other community groups and organizations such as the Harborough Improvement Team who we arranged a plastic bag awareness event for, Church Green Groups and have formed a large network of contacts throughout the local voluntary, third sector and public bodies in the process.

Members of our group are arranging Big Lunches for their streets this year and if the response is positive we hope to promote the event to the whole town in order to encourage jubilee celebrations in all areas of the town.

4. About your project

Have you identified a site or sites? Please give brief details here. (200 words maximum)

We are looking for sites where we can install both renewable energy and heat technologies. We have not identified any specific sites as yet but are looking at the following possibilities in the local area:

• Police Stations
• Hospitals
• Medical Centres
• Fire Stations
• Schools
• Care homes
• Churches and other community buildings (As long as they are not at risk)
• Council buildings
• Leisure Centres
• River Welland
• Foxton Canal Locks

We are currently in early stages of talks with an Academy status school within town and Leicestershire County Council to see if an arrangement can be made for access to Schools and other Council buildings.

Which renewable energy technologies are you considering? * (100 words maximum)

We are open to utilising all technologies where appropriate:

• Solar PV up to 50KW
• Micro CHP
• Small wind, 1.5KW to 500KW
• Small scale Hydro
• Solar Hot water
• Anaerobic Digestion
• Wood chip boilers

As our main driver is for climate chance mitigation and local energy resilience Gas fired Micro CHP would possibly only be used in conjunction with Anaerobic Digestion.

For what reasons have you chosen the technologies and the scale you have stated above? (300 words maximum)

As an environmental group we are keen to leverage any identified natural renewable resources within the area. Each technology has its benefits and challenges.

Solar has been the mainstay of community power projects due in part to the simple installation process and the generous Feed In Tariff rates but as these are reduced Returns on Investments will also be diminished.

Wind is the natural counter balance to solar in a planned generation mix with the technology generally peaking in supply in the opposite circumstances to Solar. From what we understand small wind mounted on domestic housing does not generally work effectively due to turbulence and large wind installations struggle locally to get planning permission, for this reason we will use medium sized installations.

The River Welland rises approximately 5 miles from Harborough and within the town limits would probably only be suited to a small scale Archimedes screw due to low flows and a limited drop. We will look further down stream for potential projects and could look to link up with Transition Stamford for larger projects. We feel that an installation no matter ho small would act as a physical presence in the town and highlight the work and objectives of our ESCO.

There may also be a project at the
Foxton Locks site with a huge drop through a flight of locks.

Being in a rural location we feel that there might be a great opportunity for wood chip fuelled Micro CHP in villages where there is no grid gas connection.

Being an area known for “strong” pasture there are many livestock operations in the immediate vicinity of the town offering the opportunity to work with local farmers to promote localised energy generation and Green Gas.

6.     About your proposals for community benefit

By what mechanisms and activities do you intend for your project to benefit the local community? (350 words maximum)

The ESCO will help to build resilience and stability into Harborough’s Energy supply through a multi process approach utilising energy descent and generation actions:

Education

Volunteer energy advisors also trained to be Green Deal assessors. As part of promoting ourselves we will hold educational road shows around the area explaining the energy market and what we are doing to build resilience into our community.

Energy saving technologies including insulation.

Specifically targeting vulnerable groups, community buildings and hard to treat properties that need External Insulation

Renewable Energy Generation

The path of re-localisation that is being trod will be reflected in the Utilisation, where possible, of local labour and companies to undertake installations and upgrades locking wealth into the community.

Local Economies are leaky buckets which give a large part of their contents to external companies as we import our energy, food and other services. By spending with companies based within the community and employing local labour we will be locking money into our local economy.

Through the localisation process we will be supporting quality local jobs and in time creating quality local jobs ourselves.

Our activities will help insulate the community of Market Harborough from the threats of the impending Energy gap and the volatility of the wholesale fuel markets.

Is your proposed distribution benefit limited to a certain group? (e.g. shareholders, householders).  Please give details. (350 words maximum)

Community Share offers are intended to be used where practicable to allow local investment opportunities with the resultant dividend payouts going directly into the community.

It is eventually hoped that the ESCO when scaled up will be able to have a cash allocation for local grant giving activities. This money will support projectswith aims  inline with the ESCO’s objectives.

One thread of this grant giving is hoped to be for insulation installation, especially effective if combined with the installation being undertaken by another not for profit Green Deal installations company.

We will offer reduced rate tariffs to disadvantaged families and shareholders. Our rates as an Energy Supplier will be transparent, cheap and local.

What is the geographical area or community of interest within which you expect your benefits to be re-distributed?

The project is essentially aimed to support and promote the objectives of Transition Harborough of Sustainability and resilience through localisation of goods and services, therefore this project is mainly focused on the community of Harborough Town and its surrounding villages.

When we look at projects that are outside of the boundaries of this area it is expected that an arrangement will be made to gift back a percentage of the profits to the local communities surrounding the site. Their resource and their reward.

8. About your project idea 

Please outline below why you want to establish a community renewable energy project and why you believe that the Co-operative Group’s support will be important to your success (500 words maximum).

There is a fantastic opportunity in Market Harborough to turn the community into a low consumption renewable power station, to demonstrate that proper focused investment can and will help this country both meet its 2050 Carbon Reduction commitments and its moral duty to protect and invest in the environment for future generations.

A central thread of the Transition Networks philosophy is to increase local resilience through self-reliance. This would include local energy generation as part of a mix of actions. A large part of the path to resilience is through energy consumption descent, which is to be achieved through education to change lifestyles and retro fitting of our older housing stock with effective, targeted insulation packages.

Running since its establishment late 2008 our Transition group is fully embedded into the town and its members are fully committed to a low Carbon future and full of ideas.

We wish to have a real effect on the resilience of our community and as such would want to scale up the portfolio of installed generation as quickly as possible, in part due to the phased reductions in Feed In Tariffs that have been announced. In order to measure the impact of both our community on the worlds ecosystems and of our initiative on the consumption levels of the town we wish to introduce real measurements.

We propose an annual “State of the town” report with real figures on Water, Gas and electricity consumption against which to measure ourselves.

It is our aim that this venture should eventually fund at least two staff, project managers with the remit of identifying future projects, initiating and managing the commissioning of them. To further support this aim we would also like to become a licensed “Energy Supplier” with the profits being used to help fulfil the mission and a benefit to the community of a simple transparent price tariff. We would hope to write some software for this and share it with other community groups who would like to follow in our footprints for this revenue stream.

We are conscious that our collective skill sets are limited in this area and while we have researchers and business professionals within our ranks we will have many questions that will need answering and someone to hold our collective hands and guide us through this process. The obvious areas of help would be the legal workings of incorporation, launching a community Share prospectus, the workings of the Energy market to enable the establishment of the “Supply” side and any PR advice.

All of our aims should be achievable given time but we feel that the help of the Co-operative Group will allow us to achieve this in a time frame that will allow the maximum yields to be extracted from the Feed in Tariffs providing a stable platform on which to build the company further which provides for a rather unique business case.

Please provide a short summary of your project. This should enable us to easily distinguish your project from others and may be used in publicity. (50 words maximum)

An aspirational and innovative community project to develop and rapidly upscale renewable energy and heat generation infrastructure, building energy security into our community. A virtual power station in the centre of the East Midlands spawning a series of amazing new social enterprises helping the community towards resilience and social equality.

Well the Transition Team have been busy Beavering away with the help of some bid partners to put together an aspirational road plan for Social Enterprise within our Community of Market Harborough.

The Big Lottery fund called the “Communities Living Sustainably” is for upto £1 million of revenue funding for five years to get social Enterprises started to undertake Climate Change mitigation and adaptation activities. 30 communities will go through to a detailed bid stage and from there only 10 communities will be awarded the final funding.

The bid has been posted and all we have to do now is wait until the 6^th of March to find out if we are through to the second round. Below are some of the key elements to our bid, enjoy and we welcome your comments.

10. What experience do you and your partners have of working with your local community, residents and tenants? (150 words/1,000 characters)

The RCC specialises in community consultation and support for community organisations in rural Leicestershire. It has a proven track record of project development and management and hosts several projects at its Leicester office. It also brings specialist experience of community engagement on sustainability issues, through running the Communities Cutting Carbon project, providing a hub of support for grassroots environmental groups (incorporating training and project development support) and recent work to train community energy champions.

All other partners have experience of working with our local community and have a vast network of contacts and resources for undertaking project work. The project will involve Harboroughs leading Housing Association, the County Council, the local Volunteer Bureau, the Water Supply company, local community grassroots environmental action group and local schools

12. What are the specific climate change issues for your community that you want to address? (150 words/1000 characters)

Market Harborough is a typical historic market town, de-industrialised and with many modern estates. There are vulnerable groups of over 65's, Blind and partially sighted, Learning disabilities,Young families, Unemployed and low wage earners

The population is over 20,000 and set to increase by 19% by 2016, with several new estates planned. 

The carbon footprint and air pollution is increasing with resources and services such as water, sewage, firewood, and allotments under pressure. Local rivers, reservoirs and canals are low, with over abstraction of water at low flows. There is risk of drought and storm run off flooding, an issue for farmers, gardeners and the Town Centre.

Extremes of temperatures and rising fuel costs will impact on the residents of the large stock of aging housing.

Food is mainly from supermarkets; food security is an issue and therefore susceptibility to rising food prices.

13. What mitigation and adaptation activities would you run to meet our outcomes for this initiative? (150 words/1000 characters per outcome).

ENERGY:  ECO-HOUSE – Retrofit a rented property in partnership with Housing Association and local businesses:  providing a demonstration, information and training centre, showing monetary, water and energy saving benefits to changes in lifestyle, including: Low Cost Solid Wall Insulation; Use of well-seasoned wood fuel; Use of Local Green Energy; Water saving features. Green Deal & Energy Champions – independent energy advice from trained volunteers.

WATER: Promote Green-Roofs for commercial properties and schools. Promote Domestic water saving and storage.

COMMUNITY:  Produce Annual State Of The Town Report ; New Home Owner Booklet - Work with housing developers to produce an information booklet on living sustainably for householders.

FOOD: Locally produced food is sold at the Market; Growing and Sharing Project -collect and redistribute surplus locally grown fruit and vegetables; How to grow and store vegetables and fruit; Love Food Hate Waste Cookery Courses.

Outcome: Vulnerable people affected by the impacts of climate change are able to make greener choices to help improve their quality of life

ECO-HOUSE:House will provide basis for One Stop Shop for advice, information and training courses.  The house and creation of a garden are a live demonstration of techniques and technologies in our key areas of Energy,Water and Food. The house is adapted for sustainable disability living and requirements of vulnerable groups. House shows the benefits to people of changes in lifestyle, monetary and carbon savings.

COMMUNITY:Survey the Community to identify vulnerable households and liase with Neighbourhood Watch; Sustainability Care Champions :Trained volunteers at one stop shop or road shows and home visits give independent advice and assistance in key areas of energy, water and food; Independent Green Deal advice. Finance - Provide help with financial advice and grant applications, working with local building society and credit union who offer low cost loans

Outcome: Communities maximise the use of their assets and resources to create new economic opportunities and live more sustainably

ESTABLISH NEW COMMUNITY ENTERPRISES: Local Green Energy ESCO; Retro-fitting CIC for Green Deal installations; CIC for community Green Energy projects; CIC for fitting low water use toilets and water saving technologies

PROMOTE NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES: Agro-forestry CSA for seasoned wood production for wood stoves, planting of willow & hazel for coppicing; Local food CSA, and creation of a market garden and orchard; Re-invigorate local market; Commissioning of locally sourced foods for schools,  hospitals and care homes; Local businesses to provide products and services required for energy saving, renewable energy installations, and water conservation in retrofits and new developments; Use of local businesses and services by initiating a Harborough Pound as local currency; Investigate commercial possibilities of the Canal.

TRAINING AND RE-SKILLING OPPORTUNITIES: Provide incentives to encourage local businesses to recruit and train staff in sustainable building and renovation skills; Develop training courses in rural skills, eg. woodland management, market gardening.

Outcome: Communities have a greater understanding of natural resources and more opportunities to use them efficiently

ECO-HOUSE: House and Garden is an information and training centre for energy,water and food, showing the benefits to people of changes in lifestyle, monetary and carbon savings.

CHAMPIONS: Trained volunteers go out and promote key elements of living sustainably – energy, water and food.

WATER : Public Education : Water and waste water in home & business; Local rivers, reservoirs and canal ; Wildlife conservation; House Builders are more aware of water conservation.

ENERGY: Public Education on energy saving and renewables; Schools Energy &Water Forum: building a schools network to understand and promote green initiatives in schools

FOOD: General Education –Low carbon agriculture and bio-diversity courses; Sustainable restaurant information shared; Growing your own fruit and vegetables; Love Food, Hate Waste cookery classes

COMMUNITY: Produce booklet on sustainable living; Annual state of town report; Elders share domestic and rural skills with the young.

Here are the notes of the talk I gave that went out just now on Radio 4′s ‘Four Thought’ programme.  You can download the podcast of the programme here (which also includes the Q&A that followed as a bonus feature).  I hope you enjoy(ed) it.

“It’s generally considered unwise to use props when speaking on radio, especially on your first appearance on Radio 4.  However, this talk will contain two props, and here’s the first.  It’s a £10 note from Brixton in London, but it’s a Brixton Pound.  Rather than the Queen’s head, it features David Bowie’s.  I’ll tell you more about it later, but it matters because it leads us into what I want to discuss this evening, the question of resilience. 

The former Crystal Palace manager Iain Dowie once described resilience as ‘bouncebackability’.  In our own lives, and in the lives of those around us, when we encounter difficulties, we either respond with resilience, or we don’t.  Sometimes we are able to adapt to enforced changes, to ‘go with the flow’ as it were, and at other times everything falls apart.  This applies to us as individuals, as communities, and as entire economies.  The degree to which we are resilient matters very much.

But one key question is “resilient to what?”  There’s a conventional view of resilience, but I take a very different view.  The UK Cabinet Office argues that it is up to each community to determine what they build resilience to, but then sets out what it sees as being the key areas of risk the nation faces: floods, pandemics, terrorist attacks.  In this context, resilience is a very practical matter of ensuring we have enough medicines, emergency responders and sandbags in the event of a disaster.  In this context, resilience is about the ability to adapt.  It’s about having the flexibility to get back on our feet.

I take a different perspective though, and what I am presenting in this talk is a kind of ‘Resilience 2.0’ (to use computer language).  The World Economic Forum, whose job it is to advise governments on risk, are clear about what they see as being the key ones: climate change, volatility of energy prices and the economic crisis.  These require very different, and more far-reaching responses, responses that go far beyond sandbags.

Here’s what I think we need to be building resilience to.  Oil prices have quadrupled since 2003, and prices are becoming increasingly volatile.  At the same time, North Sea oil production fell 22.5% last year, a record fall.  The cost of importing oil into the EU has risen from $280bn in 2010 to over $400bn in 2011, and it is clear that the price of oil will strangle any possibility of a revival of economic growth.  Cheap energy underpins most of the goods and services that we depend on in our everyday lives.  You can’t do economic growth without cheap energy, however many bailouts we throw at it.  The two go hand in hand.

Without cheap energy, globalisation goes into reverse.  If petrol and diesel becoming more expensive teaches us anything, it is that far away really is quite far away.  5 years ago, I found myself deeply worried about these issues, and about the kind of world I was leaving for my children.  I wondered whether in seeing resilience just as something we do in order to be prepared for a crisis, we were missing a trick: that we might instead see it as an opportunity.  How might our settlements look if we began to think in terms of resilient food, resilient energy, resilient economies?  Might this shift in thinking actually contain the potential for an economic and cultural renaissance for the places we live?  It felt to me to be a powerful question.

So, I looked around for people to work with to kick off an experiment.  It is clear, when the government argues that the supply of cheap oil to the UK isn’t even an issue for another 20 years, that they are not going to take the lead here.  So, myself and a few others set out a simple template, a simple set of principles and tools, and more importantly, an invitation; an invitation to be part of an historic experiment.  You may have heard of the result, Transition initiatives, or, as they are more popularly known ‘Transition Towns’.  The ‘towns’ bit is a bit of a misnomer: there are now Transition villages, cities, islands, hamlets, streets, schools.  It has spread like wildfire.  There are now many hundreds in the UK, and thousands around the world, in 34 countries.  The idea at its heart is that of ‘resilience-building as economic development’, that by keeping things local we can build richer, stronger and more resilient communities.   It is inspired in part by my friend, the economist David Fleming who died last year, who said:

“localisation stands at best at the limits of practical possibility, but it has the decisive argument in its favour that there will be no alternative”.

Many people have ideas, theories, models.  Those who have helped to shape this approach have been fortunate enough to have see it gain some traction, indeed to go viral around the world.  It has been a self-organised process, and like Open Source software, has been shaped, refined, deepened and evolved by those who pick it up and try it out.  It’s not our idea any more, and that’s how it should be.  It’s an exploration of what ‘engaged optimism’ looks like as the driver for change.

The idea that making our communities more resilient is the opportunity to also make them more skilled, more diverse, more grounded, better connected, more entrepreneurial, is an idea whose time has come.  Indeed, when I look around myself today, as the economic unravelling gathers increasing pace, it often looks to me like the only viable idea on the table.  I want to tell you some stories of initiatives you may not have heard of but which have arisen from Transition groups around the country and which I think hold the seed of our economic future, one which still trades, but mostly in things that can’t be produced closer to home.

A few months ago I stood in a field on the edge of Norwich as the sun went down, visiting Farmshare, a Community Supported Agriculture project started by Transition Norwich, from an idea that emerged at their launch three years earlier.  The farm has 70 members, and it produces local, seasonal produce for them.  They are recreating the model that supported us until relatively recently, farms on the edges of our towns and cities, sited close to where people live. It has been a steep learning curve, but here they are, modelling in practice a key part of a resilient food system, learning a huge amount by doing so, and building a strong sense of community at the same time.

And now to our Brixton Pound.  3 years ago, I stood in Lambeth Town Hall, watching the launch of the Brixton Pound, (“money that sticks to Brixton”).  It is a local currency that operates only in that part of South London.  The idea is that it is a tool that helps to plug the leaks in the local economy, supporting local businesses and traders.  Brixton Pounds cannot be taken out of Brixton as they instantly lose their value, they can only recirculate.  They cannot be traded internationally, nor banked offshore in tax havens.  During that event, the then leader of the local council told the packed hall “I want the Brixton Pound to become the currency of choice for Brixton”.  More recently they launched a new set of notes and also an innovative system where you can, believe it or not, pay for your shopping by text.  The next development is that later this year, the Bristol Pound will be launched, a combination of pay-by-text and printed notes for the whole city of Bristol, keenly supported by the City Council. It is an experiment in what a resilient economy looks like in practice that could have huge repercussions elsewhere.

At an event in Bath a while ago, a member of Transition Bath excitedly told me of their very ambitious plans for starting a community energy company.  Many months later, Bath and West Community Energy held its first share launch.  They raised over £700,000 in shares and have plans for a range of renewables in the city and its surroundings, and have begun with installing solar photovoltaics on the roofs of local schools.

So, to my second prop.  This is a bottle of beer, called ‘Sunshine Ale’, brewed by Harveys Brewery in Lewes in Sussex.  It was brewed to celebrate the installation of 544 solar PV panels on their roof by the Ouse Valley Energy Services Company, one of the spin-offs from Transition Town Lewes.  They raised over £300,000 in shares from local people.  We are talking here about new renewable energy, but owned by, and for the benefit of, the communities affected by it.

In November 2009 I went to Slaithwaite in Yorkshire for a coming-together of Transition initiatives from across the north of England.  On a noticeboard at the back of the hall was a poster that read “a fresh idea: a new community-owned fresh local food shop for Slaithwaite”.  The local greengrocer was about to close, and members of Marsden & Slaithwaite Transition Town and others were considering taking it on as a community business.  Shortly afterwards, they successfully raised £15,000 in shares from local people to do so, and The Green Valley Grocer was born.  Business is thriving.  The shop has acted as a catalyst, inspiring the creation of a local food-growing co-operative which now supplies the shop, and more recently they, along with other local food businesses, announced ‘A declaration of independence from the global food system’!  Although perhaps a tad premature, it highlights the scale of their ambition.

What we are seeing happen in communities across the country is deeply exciting.  It is enterprise, but it is enterprise in a context.  They are implementing what Lloyds wrote in a report about why businesses need to take oil depletion into consideration. They wrote:

“Energy security is now inseparable from the transition to a low-carbon economy and businesses plans should prepare for this new reality”.

They are going beyond this though, and seeing this change of direction as a huge opportunity.  They are not just creating standalone one-off businesses, rather businesses emerging to meet what they see as a very real need to build community resilience.  They are not hoping that the challenges outlined by the World Economic Forum will simply go away, they are, without waiting for permission, rolling up their sleeves and getting on with it.

Another key function that many of these enterprises offer is the ability for people to invest inwards into their communities.  I visit many of these communities, for their launch events, or other public events they have organised.  These are ordinary people, coming together in extraordinary times, to do extraordinary things.  To know and meet these people has been one of the greatest honours of my life.

The recent Review by Mary Portas which looked at the future of the UK’s High Streets stated:

“a pound spent in a retailer with a localised supply chain that employs local people has far greater domestic impact than a pound spent in a supermarket or national chain.  What’s more, out-of-town developments are often presented as major new sources of employment, but we need to recognise that this ‘job creation’ is often just job displacement”.

Herein lies the tension.  The current push for economic growth at all costs fails to determine between job creation and job displacement.  It also fails to distinguish between strategies that build community resilience and strategies that undermine it.  There is a Big Idea here I think, a vital one, and I hope I have managed to excite you with its possibilities this evening.

I often end talks I give with Arundhati Roy’s quote “another world is not only possible, she is on her way.  On a quiet day I can hear her breathing”.  I think we might adapt her quote, so that, in the context of this bottom-up drive for more resilient communities, communities better prepared for uncertain times, it is not only a case of hearing another world breathing, but being able to see her around us, already setting up local businesses, reviving her local economy, setting up bakeries, breweries, food hubs, mentoring scores of young people with business ideas, attracting inward social investment finance, creating the models whereby people can invest in their communities and see them being strengthened and supported.

That’s why I get out of bed in the morning, because I feel that the potential in our getting this right is so exquisite that it’s all I can do, and because the grim predictability of what will happen if we do nothing is just unthinkable, especially in relation to the challenge of climate change.  If we are able to turn things around on the scale we need to turn them around on, to replace vulnerability, carbon intensity and fragility with resilience, it will be an achievement our children will tell tales about, sing songs about.  I hope I am there to hear them.  Thank you.

Many of these stories are told in more detail in The Transition Companion and in the forthcoming film ‘In Transition 2.0′.  

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/7057

One of the thoughts I have been pondering for a while now is should we push to hold a town show, something that celebrates Harboroughs rural character and reflects its history.

Now, some of us may have wondered what was being planned for the show ground on the Airfield farm development but I believe this article kills two birds with one stone.

The Leicestershire County Show has been scrapped for at least two years and is also having to find a new home, the organisers have revealed.

The show is one of the biggest agricultural events in the county's calendar.

Organisers, the Leicestershire Agricultural Society, initially said the reasons were "unforeseen circumstances".

Chairman James Webb has since revealed landowners Barratt Homes pulled the plug on the last five years of a 10-year lease on the former airfield it uses on the outskirts of Melton.

The event has also been hit by varying attendances, which it is claimed are due to the weather, and the failure to get planning permission for events to help subsidise the show.

Mr Webb said the show would go ahead in 2012, but on land owned by William Davis in Market Harborough.

In a statement, Barratt said it was happy for the show to go ahead this May, because the lease would run until the end of that month.

However, the organisers said they were reliant on holding fund-raising events after May which was not now possible.

The two-day event attracts around 20,000 visitors, and has been held near Melton since 2006.

Mr Webb said: "Barratt's terminated the contract. We had a 10-year lease with a five-year break clause. They've not told us why, but they don't need to give us a reason.

"More recently, we've had the opportunity to move to Market Harborough and thought we would be able to have a show in 2011, but it looks like things won't be ready for us to stage a show there before 2012.

"The show relied on staging other events to help subsidise it but we were unable to hold anything after May."

He added: "Numbers at the show in Melton have been all over the place, it really is a weather thing.

"I'm not saying we didn't do well at Melton and I'm disappointed we've had to come away this year."

Mr Webb said the airfield site next to the prison at Market Harborough – being developed by William Davis – would include a showground with permanent show office and rings.

Melton borough councillor Matthew O'Callaghan said: "They've struggled to make money because they're limited by the number of events they can hold. The 21 days they're allowed includes setting up and taking down."

Martin Leyland, director of Barratt Strategic Land, said: "We understand the Leicestershire Agricultural Society had scheduled the County Show for the beginning of May.

"The lease does not expire until May 31 so we are not aware of any reason why the event could not have been held on the airfield this year. If the society would like to extend the lease beyond 2010 we would be happy to re-negotiate it with them."

Will there be an appetite for two shows in Harborough I wonder?

​Darren

We are counting down the days to the event now and the excitement levels are increasing. Today Judith and I did our first radio interview at Harborough FM. After a shakey start we finally got into the swing of things and hopefully got the message across to the listening public. We could still do with more publicity though so I you haven't already received the poster or newsletter then let me know and I can email them to you. I have put my poster up outside my house so even passers by have a chance to see the invitation.

We have several exhibitors coming to the event. Community groups sharing their experience and their projects include Morsbags, the Harborough Improvement Team Environment Group, Whetstone Pastures - Community Agriculture, Master Composter, Harborough Action for Justice and Peace, the Harborough Buying Group, Village Energy from North Kilworth, Fair Trade and of course Transition Harborough. We are also providing childrens actvities and refreshments. The event is free entry to all.

Posters around town are inviting people to come and bring apples for juicing if they have any going spare. The fruit press will be on open display outside and in front of the Methodist Church Hall. We hope to be apple to produce about 30 - 50 litres of apple juice during the afternoon. Members of the public will be encouraged to join in making the juice and will therefore be able to take some home with them. If we are left with a surplus of apples then the apple pressing will continue at my place the following day. An apple expert will also be available to help identify apple varieties  and tree care tips. We also want to map where Harborough is growing apples and generate interest in getting a community apple press for Harborough.  We are doing this by doing an apple mapping exercise.

There are a few big asks I have of you to help make this event a big success.

Firstly we need volunteers on the day, if you haven't done so already then please let me know when you are available and what you might want to have a go at.

Secondly, we need a few cakes, biscuits, scones donating so that we sell can make this event cost neutral to the group. If you could make something applely then even better. Please contact me with what it is you are making and send me the recipe for the Harborough Community Apple Recipe Book. (There is a prize for the winning recipe).

Thirdly we need you to start talking about the event to people you meet, neighbours, work colleagues and friends.

Fourthly we need apples and clean dry glass bottles without their labels to put the delicious apple juice in.

Finally come on the day and have some fun.

Don't hesitate to find out more by contacting me as soon as possible or come along to an apple day taster on Saturday 22nd October 10 - 4pm. Drop me an email for further details.

Gillian Baverstock

This was the first opportunity to try out the 2nd commissioned Apple Press by the Transition Town Movement in Leicestershire. Lots of passers-by had the opportunity to taste the juice prepared. Some lingered to have a go and helped to cut the apples collected from a local farmer. Many remarked on what a great tasting apple juice it was and what a great idea it was to use up excess apples which otherwise would have been left to rot. Many people took fliers inviting them to the first Haborough Apple Day on the 29th October.

This event was very satisfying in lots of ways and made enjoyable by the number of people we talked to. The only down side to the 2 days was the wasps however only 1 person got stung. The event definately achieved it's aims of making people aware of fruit pressing and was successful in highlighting cooperative working and provoked further thought for many.

Don't miss out on tasting a great quality Leicestershire Transition product - come and join in on 29th October. 

Enjoy

Darren

I just been reading your transition town website. I live in Shropshire and
like you I am trying to find ways of going forward positively into the
future. For me at the moment my focus is on growing food in a sustainable
way and in particular I am experimenting with a range of perennial
vegetables. They can be grown as part of a forest garden, integrated in a
permaculture veg garden or a more traditional veg patch or grown in
polycultures (which is how I grow them). I think they are part of the answer
to growing local food sustainably.

I have a blog about my exploits which is at
http://annisveggies.wordpress.com/ for anyone who is interested and I am
happy to help with any queries people may have.

Best wishes

Anni Kelsey

starting to think about the Apple Day in October. See my posts on the Forum and Abundance Group Looking for Volunteers.

Have made contact with Chris Seward at the Harborough Improvement Team and starting to think about venues.

Interested to hear your thoughts

Love Gillian

Lionel Badal was working on his undergraduate dissertation when he suddenly found himself privy to information that he knew must be made public

When will we reach the peak of global oil production? It’s a question of crucial importance as governments around the world prepare for a world of declining oil resources, in which we will be much more reliant on alternative sources of energy.

The body on which the UK and others rely heavily to make that assessment is the International Energy Agency (IEA) based in Paris and set up in the aftermath of the oil crisis between 1973 and 1974.

For years, IEA reports have been reiterating the conclusion that peak oil was not a problem. Behind the scenes however, it is now clear that senior staff thought otherwise.

It was only through the work of 22-year-old Lionel Badal, a politics student at Exeter University, that the truth about this cover-up finally emerged.

First enquiries...

It started innocently enough, as Lionel, working on his undergraduate dissertation on peak oil, set about trying to arrange interviews with politicians and figures working inside and outside the oil industry.

He was surprised when the IEA agreed to allow him to interview one of their top officials.

In the end the first official pulled out of the interview but he was replaced by one of his colleagues, a senior economist at the organisation. The new interviewee turned out to be far more forthcoming than his superiors might have wanted.

December 2008...

Lionel met the official at the IEA’s Paris headquarters. His interviewee was initially a reluctant speaker.

‘He was very concerned about how I would quote him and where it would appear – just from this I knew the meeting could be interesting,’ says Lionel.

‘He then asked if he was the first person I had interviewed still working in the industry. I replied that yes he was (I had tried speaking to OPEC but had been told they did not do interviews). After hearing this he said this was a problem.

‘He didn’t say why but it was obvious he did not want to be the only one speaking out.’

Most of the interview was ‘interesting but nothing revelatory’, remembers Lionel, but that changed towards the end when the official was asked for his opinion on predictions for peak oil.

The IEA has repeatedly said oil output can increase until at least 2030 as long as 'adequate investments are made in exploration and development'. Other analysts, including those behind the UK Energy Research Centre report on peak oil, say this is 'wildly optimistic' and that the IEA does not have the evidence to back up this prediction.

Far from sticking to the IEA line, the official said he was actually very worried about peak oil and shared some of the more pessimistic concerns.


‘From that meeting I understood there was a problem,’ says Lionel, ‘as publicly the IEA did not say this type of thing.’

Over the next few months Lionel continued his research and met with politicians in France.

Spring 2009…

By early 2009 he had finished his research and contacted the IEA official to send him his dissertation. He also told him about the contact he had had so far with French MPs concerned about peak oil.

 The IEA official told him that he respected one of the politicians with whom Lionel had met and later agreed to testify to other politicians about the problem.
 

It was a pivotal moment - through his involvement in an undergraduate disseration, a key IEA official was prepared to go public about what his organisation really thought about peak oil.

July 2009…

By July, Lionel had managed to arrange a meeting between himself, the IEA official and the MEP Corrine Lepage, a former French environment minister and well-known figure in French politics. 

Clearly pleased to meet such a respected figure, the IEA official became much more open about the downplaying of peak oil concerns at the agency.

‘He told her reports had been modified and that there were pressures on the IEA from the US not to make too pessimistic predictions,' Lionel remembers. 'He said just as peak oil theorists claimed, there was a big problem with oil.’

By the end of the meeting the IEA official had agreed to write a briefing note for the MEP on the issue. But by then Lionel thought the issue needed to be made public.

‘I knew on her own the MEP could not do anything about the problem. But I also knew that some British journalists were writing a lot about the issue, so a few weeks later I asked the IEA official whether he would be willing to testify anonymously to journalists.

The official was initially sceptical, preferring to inform politicians in a discreet way. But a few weeks later, Lionel pressed him again on the issue and he agreed.

‘I think arranging the meeting with the French MP definitely helped. It gave me some credibility as she was well known. He was certainly not naïve about the whole process and understood that his career could be at risk.’

September 2009…

Having been given the green light, Lionel contacted two journalists at the Economist and the Independent.

The Independent was slow to respond and did not seem convinced by the story, remembers Lionel, but the Economist journalist agreed to meet the following month when he was in London. However, at the meeting he said he could not immediately write about the issue as he was working on other stories.

‘I also got the feeling his position was isolated at the Economist and that the magazine would not want to take a stance by running such a story on peak oil,’ says Lionel.

October 2009…

Soon after these first attempts to make the issue public, the respected NGO Global Witness released a report on peak oil, Heads in the Sand. 

Reading Guardian journalist Ashley Seager's article on this report, Lionel decided to contact him and sent information about his IEA whistleblower to both Seager and the paper’s environment columnist, George Monbiot.

Seager forwarded it onto the Guardian’s energy editor, Terry Macalister. 

By coincidence the IEA was preparing to publish its latest annual report on oil supply and demand in early November. With the launch scheduled to take place in London, the Guardian had the perfect opportunity to maximise exposure of the story.

November 2009…


Macalister spoke to Lionel’s IEA official, and on November 10th, 2009 - the same day that the IEA’s chief economist Dr Fatih Birol was launching the agency’s major annual report - the story appeared on the Guardian’s frontpage.

As expected, the reaction was huge. ‘Peak oil whistleblower’ stories were splashed across the media.

 The IEA attempted to downplay the idea of a peak oil cover-up, arguing that their reports were peer-reviewed by international experts. But since the story broke, further reports from Uppsala University and the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security have been critical of IEA predictions.

Next step…


Lionel himself says the allegations from the whistleblower and reports from Global Witness are too serious for governments to ignore. He is lobbying politicians to launch an independent inquiry into predictions being made by the IEA.

‘We have to know what is really going on behind the walls of the so-called global oil watchdog,' he says. ‘If the Agency deliberately covers up the seriousness of the situation and provides misleading information, then the consequences could be world-shaking.

‘By not knowing that peak oil will happen within 10 or even five years, governments and businesses around the world are not preparing adequately. And this could have dramatic effects for everyone in a not too distant future,’ he says. 

Read this in the Ecologist and thought would stick it on here for posterity !!
 

Retired mechanic Jose Alano invented a simple, cheap, energy saving rooftop solar water heater which is benefiting thousands of people. Here's how it's done...

José Alano is a model of creativity in tackling environmental problems in Brazil. In 2002, the retired mechanic transformed a pile of plastic bottles and cartons into a solar water heater. Since then, thousands of people in southern Brazil have benefited from Alano's invention, saving money while reducing waste.

The idea came from the lack of recycling collection services in his small home town of Tubarão. Refusing to throw plastic bottle, carton and other recyclable waste into the landfill, José Alano soon realised he had a problem: a room full of rubbish.

'Being 59 years old, I have had the opportunity to witness the technological advances of science, which improved food storage. But nowadays, some packaging weighs almost the same than the food itself! Years ago, my wife and I realised that we were not prepared for this new form of consumption.'

Using his basic knowledge on solar water heating systems, he and his wife built an alternative version using 100 plastic bottles and 100 milk cartons. 'It worked perfectly well, and we got rid of our waste in a responsible way,' he says.

A winning invention

Alano's initiative became widely known in Brazil after winning the Superecologia prize, offered by the Superinteressante magazine for renewable projects in the not-for-profit sector. Since then, the retired mechanic has been busy with workshops and lectures in community centres and schools, particularly in the Brazilian southern state of Santa Catarina, where he lives.

Yet, Alano never wanted to profit from it, and explains why: 'I am a simple person, but I am very aware of my own responsibilities as a consumer. The recycled solar water heater was just my small contribution to the environment, and to improve the lives of people who need to save money. I registered the invention, so nobody else could copy and profit from it. Although the information on how to build it is in the public domain and anybody can access it, there are two restrictions: to its industrial production and to its use by politicians during electoral campaigns.'

The information on how to build the recycled solar heater has reached communities through the support of local governments, media, state-owned and private electricity companies, which also donated pipes and other materials.

Alano says that now it is difficult to keep track of all the projects being developed across Brazil, but he mentions some figures from the southern states: 'More than 7,000 people are already benefitting from the solar heaters in Santa Catarina state alone. There are two cooperatives, one in Tubarão and other in Florianópolis, the last producing 437 solar heaters to be installed in council houses. In Paraná state, the number of solar heaters had reached 6,000 in 2008, thanks to the DIY leaflets and workshops that the governmental body SEMA organised there.'

Big savings

The alternative water heater can provide power savings of up to 30 per cent, but apart from that, Alano notes that every recycled solar water heater built also means less plastic bottles and cartons finding their way to landfill. Since Alano's invention, Tubarão has been benefiting from regular collection of recyclable waste, something that unfortunately still doesn't happen in many Brazilian towns.

Alano has lost count of the number of times he has lectured or been visited by groups of students, eager to learn about the invention. However, this is not his only one. Alano designed a low cost multifunctional bed for disabled people, but he is struggling to find a business partnership. Although there has been much interest to put it into production, Alano says that the problem is always to keep profits lower in order to benefit the consumers.

Eight years after its creation, the solar heater still takes a lot of his time, but he believes that now he will finally be able to focus on the multifunctional bed and other projects: 'The recycled solar water heater is only the result of persistence over frustration', he explains. 'I don't consider myself an inventor. I am just a citizen trying to find solutions to problems.' 

Do it yourself
Despite latitude and climate differences between southern Brazil and Britain, the solar water heater designed by Alano is based on the principle of thermosyphon, used in many commercial heaters sold in the UK for as much as £6,000. In this system, neither pumps nor electricity are used to induce circulation. The different water densities are enough to cause a cyclic movement from the collector panel to the tank: less dense hot water upwards, more dense cold water downwards.

The assembly is straightforward, and can be better understood through the illustrations contained in the DIY leaflet (text only in Portuguese). Obviously, size does mater. Alano reckons that to heat water for a shower of one person, a 1m² panel would be enough.

If you are interested in building up your own, these are the basic materials needed: 2L plastic bottles (60), cartons (50), 100mm PVC pipe (70 cm), 20mm PVC pipe (11.7m), 90-degree 20 mm PVC elbows (4), 20mm PVC T-connectors (20), 20 mm PVC end caps (2), PVC glue, black matt paint and roller, sand paper, self-amalgamating tape, rubber hammer, saw, wood or other material for the support.

With the diagrams in the DIY leaflet as a guide, use the 100mm PVC pipe as a mould and cut off the bottom of the bottles. Cut the 20mm PVC pipes into 10 x 1m and 20 x 8.5 cm pieces, and assemble with the T-connectors. Cut and paint the cartons (pag.10-12), as well as the one-meter long pipes. Assemble according to figure B.

The panels must be placed at least 30 cm below the tank and be sited on a south facing wall or roof. To optimise heat absorption, the panels must be mounted at the angle of your latitude, plus 10°. In London, for instance, the panel's inclination should be 61°. Alano recommends that the plastic bottles in the panels should be swapped for new ones every 5 years: 'Over time, the plastic becomes opaque, which reduces the heat caption, while the black cartons can be repainted.'

Giovana Zilli is a freelance journalist 

  These are precarious and unprecedented times. Our economies crumble, while beyond the chaos of markets, the ecological foundations of our way of living near collapse. Little that we have taken for granted is likely to come through this century intact.

We don’t believe that anyone – not politicians, not economists, not environmentalists, not writers – is really facing up to the scale of this. As a society, we are all still hooked on a vision of the future as an upgraded version of the present. Somehow, technology or political agreements or ethical shopping or mass protest are meant to save our civilisation from self-destruction.

Well, we don’t buy it. This project starts with our sense that civilisation as we have known it is coming to an end; brought down by a rapidly changing climate, a cancerous economic system and the ongoing mass destruction of the non-human world. But it is driven by our belief that this age of collapse – which is already beginning – could also offer a new start, if we are careful in our choices.

The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop.

Deeper than oil, steel or bullets, a civilisation is built on stories: on the myths that shape it and the tales told of its origins and destiny. We have herded ourselves to the edge of a precipice with the stories we have told ourselves about who we are: the stories of ‘progress’, of the conquest of ‘nature’, of the centrality and supremacy of the human species.

It is time for new stories. The Dark Mountain Project intends to conjure into being new ways of seeing and writing about the world. We call this Uncivilisation .

Our aim is to bring together writers and artists, thinkers and doers, to assault the established citadels of literature and thought, and to begin to redraw the maps by which we navigate the places and times in which we find ourselves.