Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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Undercurrents 9: Jan-Feb 1975
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Undercurrents 9: Jan-Feb 1975
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
''Wot's this ?", you may well be thinking. "Advertising? In
Undercurrents?" You may well feel we owe you an explanation. Here it is.
Until recently, we've rejected display advertising because we felt that
anything worth saying to our readers could be said in a small ad. We also
felt we didn't want to give a platform in our magazine to organisations
we either disapproved of or were indifferent to, just because they could
pay for space. And we didn't want to become dependent on advertising
revenue to the extent that it might affect our ability to publish if it were
withdrawn. What's more, we didn't want to run the risk of being accused
(however unfairly) of tailoring our editorial policy to suit our advertising
market.
What we hadn't envisaged was a situation where we might want to give
more than small-ad space to announcements of products or services
which the majority of our readers would be keenly interested in. But this,
with the emergence of dozens of "AT" products on the market over the
past year, is exactly what's happened. If our readers, and our potential
readers, can't read about such products and services in
UNDERCURRENTS, then they will find another magazine which gives
them the information they want without setting it in the radical social and
political context which, we believe, is vital if "alternative technology" is
ever to help build a better society. Of course, we still won't allow
advertisers to take up valuable space in the magazine unless we feel they
have something interesting to say, and we'll refuse to accept any ads
which we feel are misleading, or are a waste of space. As a deterrent,
we'll be charging more per column inch as space increases, not
less' ( most magazines do the opposite). And we've set an upper limit of
one page per ad.
Moreover, we're moving on to the offensive in tackling the proliferation
of A T hardware by starting a Product Reviews section. In each issue,
we'll analyse a particular product in detail, pointing out its disadvantages,
its advantages, and the value for money it represents. We also hope to
probe the methods and motives of the companies producing these
various devices. In each issue there will also be a directory section giving
names and addresses of manufacturers, and eventually, a brief "potted"
review of their products. And for those who prefer to roll their own
instead of buying off-the-shelf devices, we'll have a regular DIY Project
section. To avoid becoming dependent on ad. revenue, we will set the
cover price so that it pays completely for at least 48 pages of editorial
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Undercurrents 9: Jan-Feb 1975
content in each issue. If there are more than 4 pages of advertising in any
issue, we will add a total of eight pages to the magazine's size. So
advertising, while not subsidising the basic magazine, will help to make it
bigger (assuming we get any, of course). We also undertake to investigate
any complaints from readers who feel they have been misled by any ad.
in Undercurrents and, if the complaint is justified, to have the
advertisement corrected or withdrawn.
Undercurrents is designed and edited by Sally and Godfrey Boyle. Pat
Coyne edited the Nuclear Power section. Tony Durham and Martin Ince
handled the reviews, and Martin Ince and Barbara Kern put the ads ( and
who knows what else) together. Peter Harper sez he's going to Australia
but nobody believes it yet, and Chris Hutton Squire says he's going to get
us organised but nobody believes that either.
Jenny and Janet did some of the setting, the rest being hacked out on the
UC Executive. Richard Elen produced sounds and drew nice pictures.
Brian Dax screened the Pics, and Brian Ford helped with the subs. Thanks
to Nigel and Mary and the Finchley Road folk for handling the letters and
answering the phone.
We owe our continuing existence to a very large number of people: they
include Graham Andrews, Charlie Clutterbuck, Duncan Campbell, Oliver
Caldecott, Sooty Eleftheriou, Gerry Foley, Dave Elliott, Lyn Gambles,
David Gardiner, Herbie Girardet, Ian Hogan, Cliff Harper, Roger Hall,
Satish Kumar, John Prudhoe, Kit Pedler, Lois & Suki Pryce, Ted Poulter, Pat
Pringle, Chris Ryan, Pat Rivers, Ant Stoll, Liz Short, Peter Sommer, Dieter
Pevsner, Pete Stellon, Stefan Watsisname, the Terrible Taylor Brothers, Ray
Shannon, John Shore John Wood, Geoff Watts, and all the other people
we've forgotten to mention.
Undercurrents is published every two months (well, almost) by
Undercurrents Limited, a democratic, non-profit company, without share
capital and Limited by Guarantee. Telephone 01 794 2750. Printed by
Graham Andrews Web Offset, Reading. If you're interested in helping on
Undercurrents in any way, you might like to come along to one of our
weekly meetings. Space is limited, but ring 01 794 2750 for details of
when the meetings are held, and where. (Applications from members of
the Special Branch should be in writing). Give us notice, and you'll be
welcome to come and meet the odd bunch who run the show at the
moment: but be warned, you may find yourself landed with some work to
do.
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
EDDIES: Heathrow - Was There a Nuclear Threat? 1
WHEN TROOPS and tanks were sent into Heathrow Airport in the
second week of January 1974, it was quickly clear that, whatever the
truth was, the government wasn't It telling it.
The official line was that "terrorists may try to mount an anti':";aircraft
attack with missiles. Troops and police are attempting to cover areas over
which aircraft pass low as they take off and land •.. "(Times, Jan 7th). The
threat was almost universally assumed to come from Arab terrorists, such
as the group arrested in Rome in September 1973. The terrorists
possessed the SAM-7 Russian,surface-to-air missile, it was said. And
according to the same Times report and others, the SAM -7 had a height
range of 3000 feet and a radius of 3 miles, homing on ITa SOurCE of
heat, such as an aircraft exhaust".
That any newspaper could publish these two facts simultaneously without
comment is astonishing. Commercial airlIners frequently pass over
central London at heights lower than 3000 feet, and on westbound
approaches to Heathrow will almost certainly fly over West London at
less than 2500 feet. Indeed, airliners on short haul 'routes or hops such as
Heathrow /Orly, frequently do not rise above 5000 feet at all. An Arab
terrorist armed with a shoulder-fired missile needs only to sit on his patio
in Richmond and listen to Air Traffic Control on his VHF radio in order to
pick off, say, the EI A flight incoming from Tel Aviv. But the 400 troops
and police confined themselves to setting up checkpoints for one mile
round Heathrow, plus "patrols as far as Windsor and Eton in
the West, and as tar as t.;Chiswick in the East"{Daily Telegraph, Jan 7th).
An occasional salty up the A4 to the Chiswick flyover
is unlikely to have deterred the hypothetical terrorist, who might have
been anywhere in
the neighbouring 50 square miles. Whatever the troops
went in for, it wasn't to protect airliners against SAM attack.
A further discrepancy in the official story was the use of Scorpion light
tanks and Saracen, Saladin, and Ferret armoured cars by the troops. The
use of a tank gun in a built up area is inconceivable; it could not have
been fired without causing immense damage even to a deserted airport.
Even the light guns on some armoured cars would be unusable. There
was
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an official explanation for the tanks; the Army had to use "whatever.
vehicles were available for transport and communications at ;short
notice ..•• "(Daily Telegraph,
Jan 8th). This explanation was nonsense. There are five infantry battalions
(of 400 men) stationed in and around London, anyone of which could
have been posted to Heathrow. In fact, the government sent in the Blues
and Royals, an armoured regiment who are equipped with tanks and
armoured cars. They had come from Windsor Barracks, where at least
400 troops of the Grenadier Guards were available, together with some
30 to 40 trucks and land--rovers. Both the units sent (the Blues and
Royals and the Irish Guards) also have sufficient normal transport
available (again about 30 trucks and land-rovers) for 'transport and
communication I purposes. As a last resort, the Cavalry Headquarters,
Hounslow would have had plenty of transport, just 6 miles away from
Heathrow. So the use of tanks and armoured cars was a deliberate part of
the Government strategy.
As the siege of H~Heathrow continued, some details leaked out. Reports
on January 10th, both here and in Europe, said that "it was triggered by
the discovery, over Christmas,
that a number of NA TO missiles and other weapons had been stolen
from a Belgian Army base, apparently the one at Duren, near Cologne. II
(Guardian, Jan loth)
"There was no evidence, " the report continued, "that SAM-7Is
had been smuggled into Europe as a number of reports have suggested."
This somewhat open -ended story from Richard Norton-Taylor and David
Fairhall went on to point out the discrepancies in Home Secretary Robert
Carr's statement on January 7th.
The reports, which came from both NATO and Belgian sources, were
unclear as to exactly what weapons had been stolen. Although theY
Belgian Army itself possesses no nuclear weapons,
it administers the Duren depot (which is in fact inside the German
border) on behalf of
NA TO. This depot is one of a network west of the River Rhine, which"
includes Machrihanish and Glen Douglas in Scotland, and Alconbury,
Chepstow, and Burtonwood in England. The depots arc administered by
different armies on behalf of NATO. Like the British depots maintained by
the UK and the US. Duren is . likely to hold nuclear munitions for use by
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tactical forces. And these could include Honest John atomic shells.
Meanwhile, the official line changed, to become the threat of an
American Redeye antiaircraft missile in the hands
of an unspecified terrorist group. This, once again, was nonsense - an
attempt to cover up whatever the truth of the leak was. The Redeye
missile is an exact equivalent of the SAI\1-7, heat-seeking, and with a
range of 3000 feet or so. Like its Soviet brother it is portable and is fired
from the shoulder.
There is little doubt that whatever did go on at Duren that Christmas night
led directly to
the Heathrow manouevres, .. -
eleven days later, Precautions began immediately: ":Most major European
Airports were put
under heavy guard on Boxing Day." (Sunday Times, Jan 13th), And more
than airports were involved: according to various reports, military guards
were immediately deployed along the Belgian/Dutch and Belgian/
German frontier. The French Anti-Commando Brigade (CRS) was
mobilised and on alert.
A report in Canada (see Times, Jan 7th) said that Britain's Air Defence
system was alerted on January 4th, due to fears of an
(airborne) rocket attack.
For some reason, the alert was stepped up during and after the first week
in January. Troops moved into Heathrow airport on January 5th. On
January 13th, the Sunday Times reported that armoured cars were
patrolling all major German airports, and that
heavy military guard had been placed on refineries, petrol barges, and
depots. The Dutch Army patrolled its Belgian border from January 9th.
Brussels airport was heavily guarded, as were major air\ports in
Denmark, the N Netherlands, France and Italy. Whoever took the NATO
weapons was still around and active two weeks later.
It also seems likely that a careful plot to infiltrate NATO had been worked
out. A report from SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe)
spoke of a Duren employee who "revealed the theft (and) refused to talk
any more and to give details which could help investigators." (Daily
Telegraph, Jan 10th). Nothing more was ever heard of this person, whom
another report implied to be a conscripted Belgian Officer.
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THE TRUTH?
Certainly, the official line on the Heathrow manouevres was greeted with
derision, if not in the national press, at least in
many other magazines. The story didn't, couldn't fit. A popular alternative
was to view it as a rehearsal for the British Army 'coming back home', to
practice counterinsurgency on the mainland - or as a preparation for the
military coup on which Lord Chalfont and others were luridly speculating
at the time. This story just doesn't
fit either; far too many things were going on, extending far out of the
reach of any British Military control, for the coup rehearsal theory to be
plausible. There is some evidence, indeed, that this line of thought may
have been encouraged as a cover-up by the Home Office. In mid January,
Army Ferret scout cars and others followed a Workers Revolutionary Party
demonstration through central London, apparently by coincidence. With
the blitz of Private Army stories hitting Britain during the summer, these
and all such events have - to the Left especially - become part
of preparations for a 'fascist takeover I. But could the take-
)over story have been planted on ;he Left? -R was certainly unlikely as far
as those Heathrow manoeuvres were concerned. (Although the
'continuing exercises' may be a different story. ::>Once you're on to a
good thing •. . . . )
With the little information that !:has leaked out of Belgium and NATO, it
is possible to reconstruct the events and lay a whole new interpretation
on. them, however •
A terrorist group infiltrated the Belgian Army, culminating in the theft of
some weapon or weapons from the Duren base early on Boxing Day. The
theft was discovered some five hours later, by which time the group
would have had time to travel
to parts of Germany, Belgium, the~ Netherlands, or possibly France. By
the time a watch was put on ports and borders, they might well have had
time
to get rather further afield. The weapon or weapons stolen could have
been the atomic shells used in the Honest John gun, which is standard
NATO equipment.
THE PEOPLE'S BOMB ?
If it became known that a terrorist group possessed an atomic weapon,
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the group would have unique power. Even if they had stolen it and then
just buried it in a field, or merely sent an envelope of weapons-grade
plutonium to the UN, they would h;~p. to be taken very seriously.
The political tactics of a 'People's bomb' have been considered
elsewhere. (See "Towards a People's Bomb" by Pat Coyne in
Undercurrents No.2). The ,more practical aspects of revolutionary atomic
warfare might work like this.
It is necessary to select a target which is vital to the 'enemy' country's
economy and will therefore be a real threat. It would also seem
inappropriate to attack a city, however easy, since the urban population
may well be that which you wish to win over. But an airport is an ideal
target on two grounds:-
(1) It represents an immense amount of capital accumulation, both in
terms of hardware and
in terms of trading importance. (2) The entire transport system around a
major airport is geared: to very fast movement of large numbers of
people. It follows, therefore, that an airport's hinterland is the largest area
of most-easily-evacuated population\.
The intensification of activity around mid January suggests that the group
had surfaced with a threat to a major European airport. Although threats
from the usual Arab terrorist/European anarchist/IRA groups are normally
published, in order to win so-called 'moderates' to the government's side,
on this
, occasion nothing was heard
ex ... except vague references. Yet manifestly, a serious threat had been
made to Western Europe, in harder terms than "intelligence reports".
Of course we don't mow what weapons they took, or where they took
them. But one guide is the extraordinary deployment of tanks a short
distance from Heathrow. It might well be that, given a group determined
to
get within a mile of Heathrow
in a heavy truck, tanks alone could have stopped them. It
would have been safe to shoot, as the population would have been
evacuated. It would be almost impossible to set off the nuclear warhead
as the result 01 a conventional explosion by a tank shell: each sub-
critical mass; has to come together at the right place at the right time and
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speech Also, the neutron reflector around it must be intact. The Heathrow
military deployment would be appropriate to the small but definite
possibility of an atomic attack by terrorists.
But nothing happened. The precautions all over Europe. petered out a
few weeks later, while Britain was in the throes of a three day week, the
miners strike, general election and other Heath-mania. Since no bomb
went off, no airliner was attack , and no radical demands were quietly
met by any European Government (to our knowledge) we must assume
that they failed . Since the terrorists' accompliCE inside the Duren base
was caught it is possible that he broke down under psychological torture
by NA TO, and may have assisted. in their capture a few weeks later -
though no-one, apparent' , was brought to trial. But then it would have
been impossible~ to try them without exposing the truth about the atom
bomb. theft; and to do so would be politically inexpedient. Very
inexpedient.
Ephemeral figures, quietly shot, their bodies burned they never existed.
Was this the end of the European Freedom Fighters, and their Peoples'
Bomb?
Duncan Campbell
eddie currents
Your Country's Scientists Need YOU:
MISSED THE war? Well, now's your chance to do. your bit to help a 'vital
programme of medical tests'. The Chemical Defence Establishment at
Porton Down desperately needs guinea pigs to test its latest lethal
lachrymators (tear gases to you and me).
Those who volunteer, in reply to massive advertising in certain
government publications, will be paid £15 to £30 a week. depending on
the 'amount of work' (perhaps £30 is what you get for posthumous
work?). 18 volunteers are needed for each of the 21 test periods over the
next year. You need not be a 'superman', but must be 'well
motivated' (after all, we can't have any anarchists getting practice running
through CR gas clouds, can we?).
Our nation's Chemical Warfare Establishment, to give it an honest title,
stresses the recreational and sports facilities at
Porton Down. Not to mention 'the large range area on which some
outdoor trials are conducted which offers plenty of rambling
opportunities in unspoilt countryside'. Perhaps they are referring to the
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7000 acres of the beautiful Wiltshire Downs which were closed off and
sealed up in order to create this establishment.
Bookings are being taken
. now, so just send along
your form 838/74. Regretfully, only children over
the age of 18 may accompany you. And, as you ramble over the 'unspoilt
countryside I.
spare a thought for the three villages - Porton. Gomeldon, and Idmiston
which have already been delivered the kiss of death. And for the people
of Northern Ireland, whose country is the real 'testing ground I for the
weaponry of Porton Down.
There’s a bomb in my sewage
MEET conservationist David R. Safrany. He describes himself as an
admirer of
the California coast. which he rides along on a motorcycle and flies over
in an aeroplane that he pilots himself. Naturally he is concerned about
future energy supplies. In Scientific American (October 1974) he
proposes a wonderful scheme for converting organic waste into valuable
fertilizer.
Now don't leap to conclusions. Dr Safrany hasn't invented
an improved compost heap. Rather, he proposes that the waste should be
pumped into an underground cavity and blown up with a thermonuclear
bomb. The waste would be almost 100% converted into carbon
monoxide and hydrogen: and the hydrogen could be combined with
atmospheric nitrogen to yield (after a radiological wash and brush-up)
nitrogenous fertilizer. Of course organic waste, as usually understood.
isn't
a bad fertilizer itself and frankly we're astonished that Dr Safrany didn't
spot the short cut: forget about underground cavities, carry out the
explosion at ground level and you can instantly plaster the fields with shit
for ten miles.
Un-plugging the operators
MASSIVE INCREASES In the area of the globe which can be dialed from
Britain's telephones were announced shortly before Christmas.
Subscribers in many parts of the country can now dial directly to South
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MYTHS
Much of the Anarchists Anonymous information is clearly taken from the
first-ever book on the subject, Peter I Laurie's Beneath The City
Streets . Laurie attempted to discover the locations of the possible tunnels
by starting from known deep-level (i. e. 100 feet or more down) tunnels
carrying Post Office telephone cables. Some of these had been built in
World War 1I -, and were much extended later. He assumed that their
designation as 'cable tunnels' was far less than the truth, and concluded
that they were in fact part of a large network of tunnels interconnecting
government buildings in
London. This theory was backed up by a careful analysis of the London
telephone system, which attempted to link various buildings in certain
telephone 'sectors' which had to be connected by a 'cable' tunnel. But
this theory of the telephone system was incorrect, as he later explained
(see Undercurrents 7).
Yet the AA pamphlets have repeated much of this information without
giving references or authority. So close to Laurie's are their maps and
lists, in some cases, that his book must be the main source. And although
there is strong evidence for a score or more
of specific, deep installations, there is only one known certain reference
to a network of interlinking tunnels - other than those genuinely carrying
telephone cables, water, sewage, trains, or mail. It comes from none
other than Winston Churchill,- who says in The Second World War that
"several' buildings were connected. He also says that there are less than a
dozen so connected. So,much of the network that Anarchists Anonymous
have copied from
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except
Centre Point.
There are, however, plenty
Df old station sites which are no longer used, and new workings whose
current purpose is not entirely known. They include
the former Down St station; the Goodge St deep shelter and its
interconnections with sites in
the Tottenham Court Rd area; one section of the Holborn Aldwych
Piccadilly Line extension, and so on ....
A fascinating addition to the litany of stories is the alleged unopened
Bakerloo Line extension to Camberwell. What function this serves is not
made ~lear by the AA pamphlet, although it may throw an inter~sting
light on government machinations. The building of ;;such an extension
was discussed, and rejected, some years ago. Perhaps like some sections
of the Victoria Line and the Fleet Line, it had already been built.
And there's more - rang-ing- from simple underground car parks in
Whitehall, to rather more covert parks, like the military vehicle park
beneath Hyde Park connected to Knightsbridge barracks.
The difficulty about all these theories is that there's no apparent need for
many of the extensive London tunnels suggested. In either role - nuclear
wartime or counter-civilian operations - guns and tanks can defend such
few buildings as need to operate in an emergency situation. The London
tunnels would not survive a nuclear attack - this has been obvious from
the mid 50's. The really important control points need to be well
protected and dispersed - which they are already, away from London. The
now well-known network of Regional Controls, (as the Regional Seats of
Government are now called), are specifically designed for so-called Civil
Defence purposes and none of them is in London. The bureaucrats would
administer from there, not from some disused extension of the Bakerloo
Line.
We are all seduced by the word 'Underground'. It takes you back,
excitingly, to school-kid days,
and men from Mars, and all
that. But the task of emergency counter-revolutionary action does not
require underground installations. In Belfast, the army does not live in
concealed underground lairs. It operates from buildings and bases right
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criticized on almost every item both of its method and its data. But very
few people outside futurological circles remember even the most
thorough of the critiques, which was produced by the Science Policy
Research Unit at Sussex University. For the Barilache group (who have
worked closely with Sussex, incidentally), the starting point is still The
Limits to Growth.
Already in 1972, the voices of Third World countries like Brazil were
heard at the UN's Stockholm conference attacking the suggestion that
growth should be halted. They suspected that the so-called "ecological"
arguments were simply an excuse for keeping the rich countries rich and
the poor countries poor.
But that's about all that Bariloche and the Brazilian government have in
common. Barilache wants "growth with justice", while the Brazilian
ruling class is quite happy with a nice expanding "GNP and doesn't mind
the squalor and brutality it conceals.
Obviously, there is no point in expressing a belief in growth if no
resources exist to support that growth. Readers are bound to sit up in
their chairs when they get to the "nonrenewable and energy resources"
sector of the Bariloche model, for its three basic assumptions are that
minerals won't run out in the foreseeable future, that the cost of
exploiting them will remain essentially constant, and that the cost of
energy will stay
constant or even drop in the fairly near future. For any good
environmentalist, brought up to believe that by 1985 our richest
remaining source of mercury will b~ 'canned: tuna, these are startling
assumptions. But ,3, behind them is a detailed analysis of what a
"resource" really is, in both geological and political terms.
The conclusion is that in most cases ''known reserves" can be multiplied
by a factor of 10 or 20, due to the combined effects of new discoveries of
mineral deposits, mining of
the sea bed and the deeper levels of the earth', crust, and exploitation of
known low-grade deposits - either with new technology or else with
existing technology and increased production costs. Of course, Limits to
Growth considered most or all of these possibilities and yet reached the
opposite- conclusion -
that a mineral resource crisis would be upon us soon. I suspect the main
difference between MIT and Bariloche may be in their respective
attitudes to the substitution of one material for another. Bariloche is
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optimistic, pointing out that the structural metals iron and aluminium are
essentially limitless, that aluminium can replace copper in electrical
engineering, and that other substitutions can be made in the chemical
industry. Photography, for example, is possible without silver.
It stands to reason that substitution will be easy in the industries of the
Third World which will, under the assumptions of the model, be
addressed to the satisfaction of simple human needs. On the other hand
the technologically-exotic industries of North America, from which MIT
got their figures, would certainly be hit hard by shortages of rare elements
with specialised uses. Thus there may well be tight limits on certain kinds
of groWth.
As petrol heads for £1 a gallon, the Barilache assumption of steady or
falling energy prices seems to conflict with reality. True, the so-called
energy crisis II is merely a price crisis; but surely even a price crisis can
be a severe obstacle to growth? Barilache's answer is that soon the price
of energy) will be set not by oil but by nuclear power. By the year 2000
they expect about half the world's electricity to be nuclear. Unfortunately
there is very little foundation for this optimism
Elsewhere in this issue of Undercurrents is presented some of the
evidence that all the hoary promises of cheap nuclear energy are false. It
would be very interesting to see how the Bariloche computer model
would be affected by alternative assumptions about the future of world
energy supplies: for example. if nuclear programmes were halted and if
the resources released were invested in sun,
wind and water power.
Perhaps it is unfair to concentrate on a few tiny areas of the big system
model, but it does seem worth mentioning two further assumptions which
are at the least questionable. One concerns urbanization. statistics for
many countries show that the more the population concentrates in the
towns, the greater the improvement in various statistics such as literacy or
life expectancy. The structure of the Bariloche model seems to imply that
urbanization is the cause of these improvements, which of course is not
necessarily so at all. It could be that urbanization, increasing literacy,
greater life expectancy and so on are all merely symptoms of a certain
type of economic growth, perhaps a rather imbalanced one. Very few
countries have taken effective ~steps to oppose the flow to the cities, so
the statistics simply don't show the possibility of progress without
. urbanization. Admittedly the Bariloche definition of urbanization seems
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to be a fairly broad one, which would even include the coming together
of a group of isolated farmers into a village-size cooperative. But can this
really
be regarded as part of the same process as
the sprawling shanty towns and the traffic-strangled city centres?
Similar logic seems to have influenced the Bariloche attitude to chemical
fertilisers. No
country has even tried to expand its agricultural production without
them, so inevitably the statistics show a whacking great correlation
between fertilizer use and agricultural production. But is this a reason for
giving fertilizer production absolute priority in agricultural investment, as
the computer model does? It would have been nice to see at least an
attempt to answer the question: can compost feed the world?
The apparently "tough" attitude to ecology reflects a feeling which is,
from a Third World point of view, quite justified: the catastrophe is now,
and the worst pollution is the squalor and poverty of everyday life.
Compared with this, the risks of nuclear accidents or over-use of
fertilizers must seem remote. In any case, the 'world model was not
designed to prove points about energy policy or agricultural techniques.
The overriding objective has been to show that poverty can be
vanquished, if socialism is taken as a precondition. The authors of the
Bariloche report are quite frank about its being a political manifesto.
Reactionaries will of course put it down as "unrealistic ". But their own
efforts at futurology will remain tarred by the same brush. The Limits to
Growth study itself was presented as non-political, and yet it deliberately
excludes consideration of the distribution of wealth within any country. If
Bariloche achieves nothing else, it will at least demonstrate that every
scenario of the future contains ideological assumptions, hidden or
explicit. A public which grasps this message will be better placed to start
creating its
own future.
Tony Durham
In A LOW-ENERGY Society-But How?" That's the title of a new pamphlet
produced by one of Sweden's main environmental groups.
It begins with a general discussion of recent energy debates and states the
basic arguments against high energy usage - environmental disruption,
global inequalities, over-dependence on external sources of supply, and
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Rolling Along on the Crest of a Computer: FRIGGIN' ON THE -RIGS
THE INSTITUTE of Civil Engineers' recent report Offshore structures
provides a timely insight into the dangers of extract ing minerals
from miles below stormy seas. It also articulates neatly the values
necessary to formulate codes of practice firm enough for there not to be
an unseemly carnage but elastic enough for oil company profits to
remain astronomical.
First, of course. the platform has got to be designed. For that, you have to
guess at the worst storm it'll
have to survive. Here the usual standard is the "100 year design wave ",
by definition exceeded only once per average century. It's about 30m.
high over most of the North Sea. But,
I hear you quibble. a century of data on wave heights doesn't exist for the
North Sea. Never fear, gentle reader, for the miracle
of the electric computer comes to the rescue, extrapolating the design
wave from a mere year 's wav~ statistics-usually, it's some, small comfort
to note, taken from at least the right general part of the Sea. As the report
discreetly phrases it: "very often there is an extreme shortage of both
input
data and confirmatory evidence."
There's no way, of course',
of knowing whether the year you choose is typical (and there have been
some good years for weather in NW Europe lately) but don't
let that trouble you - the whole procedure is without
any sound, or unsound, oceanographic basis anyway_ But say, with 50
platforms expected to be operating
in the North Sea in ten
years, each sitting on its
field for a decade or thereabouts, we can look for more than one to meet
a wave well over design height. Bad
news, too, for the brave lads on the exploration rigs; the deck height here
is rarely much over 30m and sometimes less, so they can expect a
soaking at best if a wave approaching design height comes by. But don't
fret.
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that these 'Socialisms' aren't socialism. I'd quarrel with his "China
persecutes racial and religious minorities"
and throw in a few more reasons. Then I'd try to distinguish between
between symptoms and causes.
And then I'd look at the causes
and try some logic. My answer would be that what passes for 'socialism',
isn't. It's capitalism of a sort. What's more, all attempts
to build an island of socialism in
a sea of capitalism are doomed.
To equate Marxism with Socialism is silly. I would have to use Marxism'
for my logic, to analyse 'socialism', so they can't really be the same.
Theoretical bullshitting? Your evasion of thought is cowardly. My analysis
is not just theoretical. It involves political action too. But it is not
frightened Of a bit of good old brainwork.
If he would only look at his own letter, Nigel would see that his analysis
of 'socialist' and , 'Capitalist', wit" much of which
I would agree, relies precisely on the 'material' level, which he later
derides from the lofty heights of the Fourth World.
,I want a world which "places a
much higher premium on animate rather than inanimate" objects, too,
Nigel. And other things, such as physical comfort and food for all ,an end
to alienating and unhealthy work, an end to authoritarianism and social
hierarchies, and the fullest development and freedom of the individual.
All individuals, not just cosy little me.
By all means criticise "meaningless jargon". R.S.J. aims to annihilate it,
even if our efforts haven't been too successful yet. Wait for the next one.
It should be better. But behind some of that 'jargon', if only we can get at
it,are real ideas, real power, and some hope that we can actually achieve,
rather than just dream about, the world we want.
Struggling classically,
John Goodman
Turn Again, Turner
Dear Undercurrents. Unfortunately, Nigel Turner's assumptions are
outrageous- not in their simplicity, but in their tacit acceptance of the
present day mass media/conventional wisdom definition of Socialism.
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platform
, he consistently came to Westminster with a thumping majority. But,
despite his separatist stance, the Nationalist candidate at the election
picked up 3000 votes at the first time of asking. Altogether, hardly an
anti-independent electorate~,
Secondly, if Scotland ever gained independence, the Northern Isles
would obviously be part of that independence, even if they did
not return a Nationalist M.P. themselves. If this were the case, and a
subsequent referendum taken to determine their position, it is by no
means certain ,that they would opt for an independent Orkney and
Shetland. Presumably, the voters who were against an independent
Scotland, or a larger percentage of them,faced with the choice of union
with Scotland or total independence, would then opt for the least-
devolutionary
possibility - to remain with Scotland.
Further, if the Isles ever did go
it alone, it would be a fierce independence and unlikely to give any
favours to English statesmen on shopping trips for oil. Remember, these
islanders have been paying
a massive transport surcharge on everything they import, and, even more
unfairly, everything they export. Cattle have recently been shot and
buried on the islands because the mainland prices wouldn't have covered
the shipping costs. They have paid dearly for oil. If they have some to sell
they are not likely to forget that. And whatever their constitutional
position, I see no hope for bargains for the English. The Shetlanders will
accept whatever suits them, but in their acceptance is no implicit
promise for the future. Sincerely,
Ian Baird,
243 Midstocket Road, Aberdeen, Scotland.
Frog Gas
Dear Undercurrents,
Thought you might like to hear about some of my findings regarding
running cars on gas, in France. I converted both my Land Rover . and
\Viva as you described in Undercurrents No.6.
1 . No need to stick to a small engined car - the 2.2 Land Rover Goes
great on propane, but needs
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a 1/4" dia. injector and correspondingly larger supply tubes. Both these
cars have semi-automatic chokes, and these can be kept pulled out (shut)
all the time. They open automatically as the venturi flow increases.
2. Butane is useless, even in hot weather. Its vapour pressure soon drops
so low (due to evaporation in the cylinder that the engine can't draw off
fuel. With propane, 'however, gas still comes off o.k. even with thick ice
all over the bottle.
3. In France I discovered that both butane and propane bottles have
threads identical to our butane bottles; I had an adapter brazed onto my
propane regulator. Further the French gas bottles are already fitted with
their own built-in hose-anti-burst valves, so you have to use propane.
With butane, the high gas flow rate (at "low" pressures) inside the bottle
causes the valve to operate, and you stop deed'
4. Gas is a lot cheaper in France than at home, but you need to depOSit
about £7 against the bottle_ This is redeemable on return of the empty to
any depot in the" same supply area (better check the extent of this!),
provided you can produce an official gas company receipt for your
original cylinder. (I couldn't I've now got the most useless souvenir
anyone ever brought back from abroad 11
5. Gas is much more readily available ,n France than here. The smaller
the town, the better the supplY, .. !t seems.
D.B., , Chester.
Bunkered Bureaucrats Beware
Dear Undercurrents,
I feel that the following may be of interest to readers.
1. There is a tunnel, as you are aware, under the Thames, running north
from the Rampart and
L.S.P. V. exchanges. supposedly
for telephone cables. But did you know that there is an Eastward tunnel
from this, possibly with a rail line. going to Woolwich arsenal. This is
pretty common knowledge amongst many people {i.e. P.O. Tech's) at
L.S.P.V ..
2. Professor Brown of the Physics Dept. at Canterbury is developing a
type of acoustic holography. by which he hopes to be able to draw 30
maps of tunnels under
the Earths surface. Very useful for locating old and forgotten mine\ shafts.
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thus preventing repeats of that very nasty mining accident a few years
ago. The technique
could also be used, of course, for detecting underground bunkers though
the project is in a very.
early stage of development.
I'd rather not give you my name and address.
Dinorwic- a mess?
Dear Undercurrents.
I have just received your issue No. 6, which is the first copy of your
magazine that I have seen, and I would like to make some comments on
it.
First, in the article "A drop 0' the black stuff ," you talk about the
"production" of gas, and by implication of other fossil fuels. We don't
prOduce the stuff: at any rate not in the sense in which we produce
wheat: we extract and burn it - this is destruction, not production, and by
the misuse of words you imply, however unintentionally, that there is
some virtue in the using up of natural resources. I n fact, of course, every
ton of fossil fuel that we burn is one ton less for our children and
grandchildren to use.
Secondly, I disagree with much
of your article about Dinorwic. The object of a pumped storage
installation is to improve the efficiency of existing thermal power stations
and to reduce the need for new ones. That is to say the alternative is to
build either another steam turbine station, probably occupying
irreplaceable farm land on a valuable coastal
or river bank site, or a gas turbine station burning expensively refined oil.
Against that, high level hydro electric reservoirs usually occupy sites of
no value for any other purpose and for the few people who ever visit
these rather desolate places they add an interesting and often beautiful
feature to the landscape. As for the lower reservoir, the whole area round
the abandoned Dinorwic slate quarries is a mess, in which almost any
change would be an improvement. If anyone doubts this I suggest that he
goes to look first at Dinorwic and second at the existing pumped storage
installation at Cruachan in Argyllshire. I have no connection whatever
with the C.E.G.B" but I will be pleased to accept any junkets that they
may care to throw at me.
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Undercurrents/LID Product Review: solar collector 11
DOWN AMONG the naughty knicker small ads in national newspapers,
they've started advertising information on solar collectors and windmills.
Companies manufacturing methane generators, windmills and solar
collectors (at least eight types of solar collectors are on offer in Britain)
seem to be surfacing all-over
the place. The world's most highly funded solar research institution goes
by
the acronym NASA; Pilkington's glass company is researching (with
others) the thermal performances of buildings designed for maximum
solar gain; and "Alternative technology" is becoming an everyday phrase.
To few of its new users will it mean A T for an alternative society. It will
merely mean A T for the existing society .
But what now is the position of those who until recently have considered
AT to be their own - a home made technology, powering decentralized
democratic communities living symbiotically with nature? Well, let's start
a little way back.
Until recently, the cost of, say, an off-the-shelf aerogenerator was
considerably more than any likely saving in running costs (in any but
unusually isolated locations) during its lifetime. The only way-an
aerogenerator could be made in
a reasonably cost-effective way was to re-use discarded fragments of
consumer junk (such as bits of motor cars), and in effect to obtain
materials and energy-of manufacture subsidy from the profligate society.
You could then put the bits together ingeniously, in your spare time, and
cut out the cost of labour. But this extensive spare time is also a direct
result of living in an energy-rich society.
This is just one way of demonstrating the alternativist 's symbiotic
relationship with industrialism. Here's another.
Consider the ephemeral, mythical "autonomous, " or "eco" house. (Ho:
Ho:) Spend a thousand pounds or so on
AT gadgets, and any house can be about 60% self-sufficient in energy.
Spend more, say three thousand, on heat pumps and windmills, and you
may achieve 80% autonomy. The last 20% will be hardest and costliest of
all to achieve. But if
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you ever got there, you'd have a house crammed with copper pipes,
plastic
insulation, phosphor-bronze bearings goods manufactured to tolerances
of a few hundredths of a centimetre. Your "autonomous house" would be
totally dependent on service engineers, spares and technological society
at large. And would have required much more than its global fair-share of
scarce materials. So a demonstrable symbiosis exists between
alternativists and industrial society (they take our ideas, we take their
goods) and at best we as alternativists aspire to a kind of harmony with
nature, also symbiotic. So (as a hopeful thesis) merely by being around
we may be helping to spread understanding of the essential unity of man
and his environment. And far from standing back and sulking as our
sacred phrases are made commonplace, we should be actively looking to
find those points where application of our ideas can have maximum
effect. And that, dear reader, is what this slot will be about. THIS YEAR
1975 is going to be interesting. Dearer fossil fuels have made viable all
sorts
of hitherto freakish alternatives. But amazingly, the instabilities of the
system have grown faster even than the Ecologist's editors foresaw, to the
point where all economic and manufacturing activity, even of alternative
devices like windmills,
is highly insecure. So ordinary folk, with perhaps enforced leisure, are
likely to
be thrown back on their own resources, producing allotment food for
instance, or tinkering with rear--differential windmills. Its already
happening; those small ads
are evincing enormous response from enthusiastic D-I-Yers.
Issue-by-issue in Undercurrents from now on we will be examining this
new 'alternative technology' which has become much more widespread
and ideologically diffuse. We'll have three sections:
PRODUCTS REVIEW
We have been watching the emergence of commercial organisations
selling' A T' hardware information for some time now. Even among the
honest operators we detect a deal of bandwagon hopping and
opportunism. We will be testing the products, and examining the
organisations and processes which produce them, and if we can help
singe a few sticky fingers, so much the better.
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DIY
A good way to expose a rip-off is to demonstrate a cheaper, better
alternative .. So each issue we'll be including a DIY instructional poster
for a simple project, and if you carry out the whole programme, you'll
find your household a fair bit closer to self-sufficiency_ by the year's end.
LISTINGS
As a matter of editorial policy, each issue of Undercurrents will carry a
list of manufacturers of products, eventually with 'thumbnail' reviews, as
a reader service. In advance of our main-body of reviews, here's a
couple of contrasting organisations, which in their own-ways have
chosen to adopt high prOfiles.
STELLAR HEAT -
Stellar Heat Systems Ltd., 113 Stokes Croft, Bristol. Booklet & advice £1.
75. Six months ago, Mr. F G McDonnell was turned on to solar energy by
a Sunday Times article. Since then, he says, he's done more to publicise
solar energy in this country than the only long-term manufacturer of solar
panels has in 15 years. You may have seen his ads. The 12-cm double
column spot in the Sunday Times costs him £380 a throw, and advertises
a booklet plus free information service for £1. 75. He's sold 6,000· of
these DIY booklets, and had six complaints which kinda indicates an .
ignorant public. He showed me the file,
• each complainer refunded and the
~ receiver of a finely turned phrase or
;~ two. While I was with him, several of ~his clients phoned up with little
practical points, and received considered advice. A modest four-person
team runs the business, and McDonnell expects to lose money for up to
another six months. After which time he expects to make money with a
purpose-made aluminium collector, the blueprints for which he showed
me. Currently he is making and selling a small batch of collectors to the
same D-I-Y-type specification as his book(let) contains. And there's the
rub. Stellar's expertise is in mail-order. But the technical expertise is
embryonic, and the collector design is severely misconceived. The
collectors are loosely cribbed from Mr. Blanco's Solar Heat Ltd.
collectors, which themselves are sturdy, slow response collectors, ideal
for his African export market, but less efficient here. (More later.) But
McD's collectors have a longer water-route, and are to be connected,
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either to attend the congress itself or to buy natural foods, craft products,
medicines and cosmetics at the exhibition. Le Monde put the total
attendance over the three days at 20,000.
Conference sessions on different subjects went on in up to four rooms
simultaneously. Many of them were about practical or theoretical aspects
of organic farming. Other subjects were alternative medicine, pollution,
biodynamic agriculture, the dangers of modern foods, recycling, forestry
and alternative energy cycles. We can give you only a taste of it all: our
report will concentrate on the big plenary session on nuclear energy. The
rest you'll eventually be able to get in the form of a book from Nature et
Progres (address below.)
Meanwhile in other parts of the building ecological films were shown
almost nonstop and a wide range of books was on sale. In yet another
room was the Ecology Workshop, a small but exciting exhibition of
ecohouses, and equipment for home-made energy.
Model of a solar bungalow designed by architect Jacques Michel. The
house, which has been lived in for 3 years, traps an estimated 10,000
kWh of solar heat a year. Heat is stored in vertical, slab-shaped
water tanks, positioned behind glass windows Motorized blinds control
the input and output of radiant heat, and the air in the house is warmed
as it circulates round the tanks. In other projects Michel has used thick
concrete walls, black-painted and faced with glass, to absorb and store
heat. He says
this system is as cheap to build into a house as ordinary central heating.
Michel (above) was criticized for using glass and concrete, "dead"
materials. And someone pointed out that his use of electricity for
supplementary heating in solar houses is wasteful. If the house uses
roughly 30% electricity and 70% solar heat, the solar heat gained is
about the same in quantity as the waste heat which went up the power-
station chimney to generate that electricity. One could save fossil fuel
equally well by heating the house directly with oil alone. Never mind. It's
the thought that counts.
One of GEME 's eco-houses. This one is still just a model. Another, at
Chevreuse, is already being built. This group of architects says: "we shall
try to build a house which in its form and capabilities takes account of
the quality of Space and Matter at the site, of soft technology and energy
autonomy, of symbolism and of that level
of consciousness which has been monstrously annihilated in present-day
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architectural production. It
Lawrence Hills of Britain IS Henry Double\f00 day Research Association
(seated): "I have heard that during the war there were 3000 methane
generators in France. There are three now. " Hills I talk on methane was
extremely practical and well illustrated with slides. Wild applause
followed. Hills is currently investigating a new breed of 'cellulose-
breaking'" bacteria from America. They could convert the paper content
of urban garbage into useful energy. But the risk is that if they take too
much energy out of organic wastes, there won't be enough
left in the residue for it to make good compost. Good compost should be
an
energy source for soil bacteria and for earth worms.
A big Aerowatt wind generator dominated the Workshop. J.M. Noel, of
the Aerowatt company, proposed that a household should be prepared to
invest £2000-odd in wind generating equipment to supply a sizable
chunk of its energy needs. Someone objected that in that case we should
develop different needs! Businessman Noel trod on more toes when he
praised mass production for its "economies", and when he sidestepped a
challenge from the audience to hand over his trade secrets to do-it-
yourselfers.
I Wholesome nosh from stalls like these kept'
body and soul together for many of us at the conference. The alternatives
were a production-line university canteen, or sit-down lunches
(organically produced) at 25F (£2.2 a time.
Starting 9 a.m. Sunday morning, a crowd of 4000 packed the big hall to
hear the case against nuclear power stations.
Arthur Tamplin: "The industrialized nations of the world must rapidly
move towards a steady state economy. !I In 1963 the US Atomic Energy
Commission asked
Dr Tamplin and Dr John Gofman to investigate the potential dangers of
so-called "peaceful uses of the atom". When Tamplin and Gofman
reported that radiation is twenty times as dangerous to people as had
previously been thought, the AEC didn’t want to know. But public
pressure has now slowed US nuclear power development to a crawl.
Prof. P. Weish (Austria) : a stern look at nuclear "safety standards. These
calculations do not correspond to realities but merely to illusions and
desires on the part of the technocrats. " And about plutonium: "Even the
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they use in the brochure, and so shall we ... The hardware costs about
£40, the software 4p a lb.
Max. Crouau (right) says chemical fertilisers are unnecessary. Nitrogen
and phosphorus can be got from compost and urban waste. Potassium is
naturally
carried from the sea and falls in the rain; more can be added to soil in the
form of rock powder. It must be the right kind of rock, and it must be
ground to the texture
of flour. It can then be sprayed onto the
soil as a slurry. Crouau describes it as a soil improver rather than a
fertiliser. The main problem is silicosis. North African and Turkish workers
work unprotected in the French mines. After three or four years when
their lungs are full of dust, the workers are replaced.
Jean-Claude Mainaud (left) opposes factory farming, but thinks animals
have an import\f00 and role in organic agriculture. By digest\f00 ing
vegetable matter they can accelerate
the cycle of humus formation and nitrogen fixation. According to
Mainaud, stock\f00 breeders who change to organic methods will
experience an immediate improvement in the health of their animals. He
dislikes commercial vaccines and artificial feeds, and treats his own stock
with homoeopathic remedies. Fiches ecologiques are duplicated on A4
paper. Some are single sheets, some consist of several sheets stapled
together. The material is lifted fairly uncritically from other sources, some
of them undoubtedly good. Daniel Fargeas started doing them in 1973,
and he's covered an amazing range of subjects. There arc 40 leaflets on
agriculture, gardening, pests, and on going back to the land; 23 on wind
energy, solar energy and methane; 22 which list suppliers of organic
produce in France; 47 on self\f00 help medicine (pretty weird, some of
'em); and a growing number of leaflets which simply list names and
addresses of organic farmers and other interesting people.
The shock is the price: 21" (18p) per leaflet. If you don It like it, do your
own research. Catalogue is free but you should probably send an
international reply coupon for post\f00 age. A kind of "women's page",
Fiches Pedagogiques,is published by Christine Dony.
ADDRESSES IN FRANCE
Organisations
Nature et Progres,
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
NUCLEAR POWER: 16 Page Special Feature 17-32
Why the NUCLEAR POWER PROGRAMME MUST be STOPPED
ANY FUEL which has pretensions to supplying a major portion of the
world;s energy requirements ought to meet certain basic criteria:
• It should be in assured supply.
• It should be reasonably cheap and easy to exploit.
.It ought to be widely available and not limited by political or
geographical factors.
• It should be capable of being easily scaled up or down to allow for
differing requirements and states of technological development
• It should provide substantial net energy yield after allowance for all
necessary energy investment .
• It should be safe in operation
• It should have minimum environmental impact and produce a
minimum of dangerous or undesirable by-products.
It is not unfair to say that nuclear power meets none of these conditions
completely and on several it fails miserably.
Lack of proven uranium resources, low investment in exploration and
mining, coupled with financial difficulties and shortage of enrichment
and reprocessing plant capacity are likely to lead to a severe fuel
shortage in the early nineteen eighties - well before the oil is due to run
out. Despite all claims and with fossil fuels increasing rapidly in price,
nuclear power is still expensive, 20% more than modern coal fired power
stations and nuclear capital costs are rising faster than conventional.
Several utilities in the US have come close to bankruptcy through trying
to go nuclear and many more are cutting their losses and suspending
or abandoning nuclear plant and returning to fossil fuels.
Like oil the world's major uranium reserves are concentrated
in a few areas, most of them not likely, for one reason or another, to be
large consumers in the near future. Once again the world may be divided
into energy haves and have-nots. Furthermore nuclear power is a rich
country's technology. It presupposes a
well developed electricity distribution network and a large industrial
infra-structure. The few efforts to sell nuclear plants to
UC09: page 44
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third world countries have been largely for propaganda and prestige,
totally unrelated to the developing country's needs.
On perhaps the most fundamental criterion of all, that of a substantial net
yield of energy, the question is still open. It seems possible that, with any
of the planned national nuclear programmes, a large fraction of the
output, and in some cases all of it,
will have to be reinvested to maintain the rate of growth.
Over the operational safety of reactors and the storage and disposal of
spent fuel, the question marks loom very large indeed. Discussion of the
possibility of a 'loss of coolant accident' in Light Water Reactors and the
subsequent release of a large fraction of the fission product inventory -
equivalent to the fallout from several thousand atom bombs - is a
considerable literature in itself. Despite the recently published Rasmussen
report (which equated the chances of dying in a nuclear accident with
those of being killed by a falling meteorite), the question cannot be
considered in any way resolved. Doubts about Rasmussen's methods and
the disturbingly frequent occurrence of basic component failures, to say
nothing of violations of safety regulations, have done nothing to allay the
suspicions which already existed.
Surreal is the word which comes to mind when discussing the storage
and disposal of the spent fuel. On any reckoning even
the fission products will have to be stored for upwards of a thousand
years before they can be considered safe. What plans the various atomic
energy agencies have to keep the actinides out of
harms way, especially Americium which remains dangerous for ten
million years, have not yet been revealed. The fact that no way, even in
principle, has been found to dispose of these wastes has not prevented
the planned huge increase in reactor numbers. The problem will be left
for posterity while we consume the kilowatts.
Low level radiation, from accidental and planned releases and from
contaminated cooling water, could cause thousands of cancers a year
and perhaps induce genetic disorders. Plutonium, a byproduct of any
reactor, is a ,;Unique hazard. It is one of the most toxic substances
known and a few kilogrammes can be used to make a bomb.
Proliferation of nuclear weapons through the spread of commercial
reactors throughout the world is almost certain. The chances of other,
non-governmental, hands on the bomb must be regarded as highly likely.
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
KILLER WATTS The Perils of Poisoned Power Complete
THIRTY YEARS after Hiroshima, safety still remains the most emotive
issue in
the nuclear debate. Critics have continually pointed out the human and
technological shortcomings of the nuclear industry in many cases forcing
it back on the defensive and opening up whole new
areas to scrutiny.
There are three principal areas of concern. Operational hazards of
reactors Problems of waste storage and disposal Hazards of low level
radiation
Operationally the debate has centred on the American Light Water
Reactors and the possibility of 'loss of Coolant Accident' (LOCAl. The
LWR comes in for attention both because of the degree to which
information is made available in the US and the consequent activity
of critical groups and because the LWR
is far and away the most common reactor type, both in the US and
worldwide.
To understand the possible significance of a reactor accident it is
necessary to appreciate what might happen if its con\f10 tents were
released. A 1000 Megawatt (electric) LWR, a fairly average size as these
things go, contains about 72 million curies of radioactive Iodine 131
(much less than 1 curie can be fatal), sufficient
to contaminate the atmosphere to a height of 6 miles over an area the
size of the United States to twice the maximum permissible
concentration.
The consequences of an uncontrolled loss of coolant accident in a large
LWR, in which the activity of all the fission products might be more than
ten thousand million curies, could produce a disaster area, according to a
1965 USAEC paper, of 10,000 square kilometres and be fatal to people
living several hundred kilometres down-wind of the plant.
Because of this huge potential for disaster nuclear power plants are built
with extensive back-up safety systems designed to minimise the
consequences (If any malfunction.
With the stakes so high the nuclear industry has had to go to
extraordinary lengths to prove and improve the safety of its systems. There
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is little doubt that safety and engineering standards are higher than in any
other field comparable but the question has to be are they safe enough?
or indeed can they ever be safe?
Sceptics point to the operating experience of LWRs in which component
failures,operator errors, design and construction faults and violations of
licensing requirements have occurred disturbingly often. Recent failures
include cracks in feed-water pipes in three Boiling Water Reactors which
resulted in the
shut down of all 21 US BWRs while inspection was carried out. The pipes
concerned were reportedly manufactured to the same quality as the
primary coolant pipes whose failure could lead to a LOCA.
Perhaps even more disturbing is the evidence of human failure, or
carelessness. I n a paper given in 1973 at a reactor safety conference in
Vienna PA Morris and RH Engelken report that 'A large number of
violations of license requirements and AEC regulations have been
identified'. Approximately 75 violations were discovered at only seven
plants, although no deliberate effort was made to look for infringements,
and at three of these the reactor safety mechanisms were altered to
operate at higher danger levels than laid down by the USAEC. Similarly
the USAEC is itself proposing to assess civil penalties against several
utilities, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, because reactors were
left unattended while operators fetched a cup of coffee or the like a
violation considered to be 'of major significance'.
Apparent malfunctions are not the only cause of doubt about LWR safety.
Critics have pointed out what they consider methodological flaws in the
way the industry analyses its systems deliberate underestimation, or in
some cases refusal to recognise possible risks, Risks ignored included the
possible catastrophic failure of a steel pressure vessel, widely considered
to be 'incredible' despite extensive British and West German data to
show that failures might be expected two or three times in ten thousand
reactor-years. It is hardly reassuring to hear a senior USAEC official say-
that 'No design was available which could withstand the consequences
of pressure vessel failure so it was decided to take the risk'.
Naturally, with these sort of risks involved and with the peculiar
propensity of things nuclear to alarm the public, the USAEC have been
anxious to allay public fears. Two major reports have been commissioned
on the consequences of a nuclear accident. The first of these, performed
by Brookhaven National Laboratory, published in 1957 and known as
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Low level radiation, the result of both planned and accidental releases,
representing the most insidious danger from the' nuclear programme,
That some release of radioactivity is inevitable is accepted by all
concerned. Leakages and accidents occur in the best regulated systems
and
in addition reprocessing plants routinely dispose of large quantities of
low level waste by pumping it into the ground or
a convenient body of water.
What is a subject of very considerable argument is the harm that this
radioactivity can cause. Chief catalyst of the debate has been the
publication of a report prepared for the US Atomic Energy Commission
by John Gofman and Arthur Tamplin in which they predicted that if the
radioactivity produced by the nuclear power programme reached the
guidelines allowed by the Federal Radiation Council (FRC) of 0.17 rads
per year, (a rad is a measure of radiation dosage), it would lead to 32,000
deaths from cancer and leukaemia in the US. Not surprisingly this hit the
USAEC and other nuclear enthusiasts like a bombshell. The first reaction
was disbelief followed by assertions that the nuclear programme would in
any case lead to radiations less than one thousandth of the F RC level an
assertion which contrasted strangely with a continued refusal to lower the
level. This double think reached some sort of nadir with
the statement of US assistant Health secretary Roger Egberg in a
Congressional hearing.
'We continue to advocate the basic premise that the FRC guide must not
be construed as an allowed dose which could result in every person in
the United States being eventually exposed up to the present level'.
In other words what is 'allowed' is not what the F RC lays down as a
guide.
Permissible limits also ignore the effect of biological concentration.
Caesium 137 from a power plant can be deposited on grass, eaten by
cows and then drunk by human beings, becoming progressively " more
concentrated in the process. If the maximum permissible concentration
(MPC) for Caesium 137 in the air were maintained for one year in those
circumstances, then the dose received from the milk would be 15,000
times more than
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
THE BREEDER : FAST AND DEADLY by Tony Durham
PLUTONIUM WILL BE the oil of the 1990's, the fuel on which the West
will then depend for its continued economic growth. This conclusion is
forced on anyone who will draw an upward-bending curve for gross
national product and parallel it with a similar curve for energy
consumption. Fossil fuels cannot meet the demand, the argument runs,
nor can 'alternative' sources of power such as sun or wind. Controlled
nuclear fusion is still just a gleam in a physicist!) eye. The 'energy gap'
can only be plugged in one way: by nuclear fission power stations. If
nuclear power stations of existing types are built at the 'necessary' rate,
the resulting demand for uranium will send prices skyward.
The solution we are offered is a new type of react,.r, which can get about
a hundred times.$ more energy out of a given amount of uranium. This is
the fast breeder reactor (FBR). While it burns uranium, it 'breeds' another
nuclear fuel, plutonium 239. On this rest the nuclear industry's hopes.
However, the bold graphs of soaring energy production conceal the
numerous problems which still surround the breeder. The reactor itself
may be liable to certain types of accident which are inconceivable in an
ordinary 'thermal' reactor. At the worst this might include a nuclear
explosion. Then there are the risks associated with plutonium. Plutonium
is a man-made element, the raw material of atomic bombs. It is
exceedingly toxic: minute quantities are very effective in inducing cancer.
If plutonium is stored and transported in power station quantities,
deliberate theft and accidental pollution will be hard to prevent. Even the
economics of breeder reactors are in doubt. Their performance must
improve considerably before they can breed plutonium at a useful rate.
...
Main article:
The design of breeder reactors is different because the physics are
different. The crucial process is the absorption of neutrons by atoms of
uranium of atomic weight 238. The U238 is converted into fissionable
plutonium 239. For this purpose the neutrons have to be moving fast,
otherwise the U238 nuclei will not absorb them. The high power
densities of fast reactors, of the order of 350 to 450 kW per litre, demand
efficient cooling. Water is useless because it slows down neutrons too
much. Current practice favours the metal sodium, which melts just below
the boiling point of water.
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use two separate loops of sodium plumbing: one passes through the core,
and acquires fierce radioactivity; the other loop, which serves the steam
generators, is supposed to stay relatively 'clean'. All these systems are
duplicated so that a single failure should not be disastrous.
However if a multiple failure leads to 'loss of coolant', the core has to
look after itself. No genuine emergency core cooling system is provided
for sodium cooled reactors. (Such a system is mandatory in the US for
water-cooled reactors). , Plutonium 239 has a half-life of 24,000 years.
On the time-scale of human activities, it is long-lived. To human tissues
or to a Geiger counter, however, it is strongly radioactive. Unlike uranium
235 or 238, it is not safe to handle. Even conservative estimates make it
one of the most toxic substances known. Inside the body it tends to
concentrate in the bones, leading to possible bone cancer. It may also
collect in the liver, Reports in the Guardian have also suggested that there
is an unusually high incidence of leukaemia in British plutonium
workers. Seven cases have occurred, with five deaths, in a group of
which only one case was to be expected.
Plutonium dust is also dangerous if inhaled. According to Tamplin and
Cochran, official limits for/inhaled plutonium have been set 100,000
times too high. The standards are based on the assumption that radiation
from a plutonium particle is spread over the whole lung. Tamplin and
Cochran, on the other hand, believe that a 'hot' particle can lodge in one
place for about a year and deliver an enormous dose of radiation to a
small volume of lung. On their theory, one single particle a thousandth of
a millimetre across would give a .J>person a one-in-2000 chance of lung
cancer. Inhaling a few thousand particles would raise the chance to near
certainty. A couple of kilos of plutonium could, in principle, wipe out
everybody in the world. Breeder reactors may have made several
thousand tons by the end of the century. Despite the known dangers,
plutonium is guarded, in 'the words of George F Will, 'no more
rigorously than currency'. In fact plutonium accounting at nuclear plants
is a good deal looser than money accounting. The accuracy which can be
achieved is about 1 %, according to an official American report.
However one safeguards expert said that only 3-5% accuracy can be
expected over the whole fuel cycle. To improve on this would be very
costly. Some plutonium at a reprocessing plant always ends up in
insoluble solid waste. This waste may be inhomogeneous, and its
plutonium content must be estimated by analysis of small and not
necessarily representative samples.
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
End of the American Dream by Colin Sweet
WILL THE world Go nuclear by the end of the century? Until recently the
Atomic Energy Commission and all the energy chiefs in Washington were
quite sure that the answer was Yes.
They were sure, because America would Iead the way, with mass
produced hardware. It would back this up by supplying. about 60% of
the world's (excluding the USSR's) demand for nuclear fuels - ‘all of
which would be highly profitable. I multi-billion dollar business' shouted
Representative Craig Homer to the Joint Commission on Atomic Energy
last year ‘and the US ,ought to have as near to all of it as possible'.
The governments of the remainder of the advanced industrial countries
are following the same order of targeting for nuclear power as the
Americans except for odd cases like Norway, where the surveyors for the
first two nuclear plants were chased off the site by opponents of nuclear
power, and never came back. The total of the world's nuclear by the year
2000 is projected to be around 2,000,000 Mw (2,000 Gigawatts) half of
which would be in the USA.
This kind of nuclear growth would involve immense changes. Whether it
is desirable or not is a serious question that is nonetheless important
because the . politicians have pre-empted it. ,But the more practical
question is:. is it possible? Our societies are not yet capable of dealing
with the problems and the possible dangers that nuclear power of this
magnitude requires. Not only would it mean nuclear power stations in
large numbers,with attendant safety and health problems for the workers
in the stations and the people living nearby, but it >would. require
methods of political control and finance which at present appear to be
beyond our capability. It is highly significant that before nine people (out
of ten have ,even begun to think at all about what a nuclear future Would
mean, the governments (including our own)have in principle already
decided that nuclear power will be dominant before the end of the
century.
They have willed the end, but can ., they Will :the: means? When one
examines .t; hOw the pOlicy decisions are arrived at, f} there is a
$strong,suspicion that the people .,. who do the arriving don't really
know where they have got to or how they arrived there. The decision-
making process as it works at present is the beSt evidence for my
contention that our society is neither capable nor competent yet to
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commit itself to a nuclear future. One could, of course, illustrate this from
British experience, but it is more interesting$to to look at what is
happening In America right now.
The United States' Nuclear Dream
Today the US has 29 Gw of nuclear generated electricity on supply from
40 nuclear power stations. By the year 2,000, the middle range forecast is
for 1,000 Gw approximately. It would be supplied by something like 1 ,
500 stations generating 60% of US needs. The size of the US
programme, plus contracted obligations to supply foreign reactors
and ;the desire to take the bulk of the exPanding. world market,means
that there is a tremendous strain developing on the US fuel supply
industry. At, present the US has three plants. The Oak Ridge plant, the
oldest and largest in the world, consumeS as much power as a fair sized
industrial town. To satisfy the planners in Washington, the US will need
fifteen more of these plants. As each will need three nuclear power
$stations of 1000 Mw each to supply them, this means building 45
nuclear stations, just to make the fuel to supply nuclear enrichment
plants. The total cost of this expansion programme, plus the cost of
mining and milling the uranium ore, will be S60-70 billion. With the oil
crisis seeming to provide an ideal boost to the nuclear programme, 1973
saw the first phase of the programme proceeding right on line. By "
March 1974, a total of 180 reactors were working, committed, or under
construction. By June of that year, 200 Gw was secured, and with its
overseas customers added, the AEG had signed contracts for servicing
320 Gw of nuclear power. But within three months the programme was
in deep trouble. In the US, 80% of the power supply Is provided by
private companies (or investor()r-owned utilities as they prefer to be
called These utilities are sensitive bodies.
They know what a profit and loss account looks like, and they can sense
when losses arE likely to arise. They began to unscramble many of the
contracts they had got into, and in cases where they had gone a long way
on construction, they froze a considerable number of the sites. A survey
of 42 utilities showed that they had cancelled or deferred 112 new
plants, of which 65 were nuclear and 57 were fossil-fueled. The 60
nuclear plants accounted for a total of 69,354 Mw(&5.39w) of the
nuclear programme. It was: intended that by 1980 new nuclear plant
construction would have been ahead of fossil plants. Now it is clear that
the reverse will be the case. The total estimated nuclear capacity that has
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If utilities bring 30,000 Mw on line each year this 'could mean a constant
commitment of 300,000 Mw (assuming a ten year lead time).
c) Load factors (i.e. the percentage of capacity power that the station
actually sells) are declining. As capital cost over time is a function of the
load factor
the burden of cost goes up as the load factor comes down. The industry is
now in something of a cleft stick. Every spokesman for nuclear power has
been saying that it is the cheapest form of power and getting cheaper
(relatively) and so it has been difficult for the industry to obtain
very much in the way of new state subsidies to meet the rapidly-rising
(hidden) real costs.
The capital structure of the companies show a high debt ratio. The power
companies in many cases are in an even more parlous condition,
crippled by indebtedness. They have fallen from being amongst the most
secure of investments to their present low posi-
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and this ties it closely to the banks. Increasing short term debt reduces the
value of the equity stock; it is also inflationary. If the company can
manage to float another issue of stock, this has the effect of diluting the
stock - i.e. reducing the dividend, unless the company can grow very
rapidly and increases its sales and the value of its assets. The US Utilities
are now in a hell of a mess. Which is why they have been cancelling
plant and lobbying for tax concessions in Washington. They have recently
persuaded Congress to allow them to raise money through tax free bonds,
specifically to meet the environmental costs on their power operations!
The situation Was highlighted by Dr John Sawhill, head of the Federal
Energy Agency (recently sacked by Ford for being too outspoken): 'The
electrical utility industry is confronted with critical financial problems.
Companies have experienced.. debilitating erosion of revenue due to
reduced consumer demand,lack of timely and adequate rate relief ,
soaring operating costs, depressed stock prices and record interest rate
on debt offerings. As of r June of this year stocks of 93 electrical utilities
averaged 76% of book value. Since offerings of additional common stock
will mean further dilution of earnings per share, such equity issues are
unattractive to investors ... This financial distress arises at a time when
their need for funds for expansion of generating capacity - even with the
slowdown in demand growth - has never been greater.
Thus it is clear the companies are caught in a vicious circle of declining
capital value and increasing debt. From such a position it seems
impossible for them to reach out and organise the vast expansion of the
energy industry which the US says it needs and . " which would be
headed by nuclear power.
It is questionable whether private US capital really,wants to come into the
nuclear field. The risk element is too great. Bank and big institutional
capital has been pulling out, Who,then,, will provide the enormous sum
of 700 billion dollars for the US reactor programme ?
Like the thermal reactor programme, the fast breeder, and still more the
enrichment industry, is in trouble. But they are both in government hands
after much euphoria about getting In, the big private fish have moved
away after sampling the bait. The fast breeder at Clinch River is going to
cost not the $699 million dollars estimated in 1972, but $1,736 million,
which is the AEC's new estimate. So far, S2 billion have been spent on
Research and Development for the LMFBR.
Last 2 paras of p. 24 are MISSING.
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Some of the reactor output has to be invested in the building and fueling
of future plants and the proportion Which must be invested depends-
critically as it turns out - on the rate of growth,f the nuclear programme.
In the British case, with the number of reactors planned to double every
4.3 years - slow by the standards of some other countries - analysis of the
energy flows involved shows that even Using high grade. uranium ores
only about a quarter to a half the energy which is supposed to be
produced will be available for general consumption. The rest will have to
be reinvested. to sustain the rate of growth of reactor construction. This
means that either two to four times as much capacity must be built as
expected or else the electricity generated will be two to four times#Jt as
expensive. For the current US and french programmes, which envisage
doubling reactor numbers every 2.5 and 2 years respectively, energy
analysis leads to the apparently absurd conclusion that all the energy
they produce - and more - must be reinvested. In . other words these
reactors will receive a Continuing energy subsidy from fossil fuels.
If Price and his cohorts are right - a point much contested by some (see
Wright& Syrett, Energy Analysis of Nuclear Power, New Scientist 9/1/75)
then they have raised very serious doubts about the whole raison d'etre of
the nuclear programme. It has become an article of faith,almost an
ideology in tome quarters, that nuclear power is the only source capable
of meeting the demands of the next few decades. Now the task of
building the plants in the time required may turn out to be truly
Sisyphean. like a snake eating its own tail the nuclear programme could
consume the energy it produces. It may be, as has been claimed, that in
the long run nuclear power comes into very favourable energy
balance,but that is hardly the point. By 'long term' is meant the much-
heralded slowdown to a zero growth situation, but in the industrialised
world the emphasis is on tile relatively short term replacement of one
energy source by another, while exponential growth is expected to
continue. The impetus, at lea in the West political and financial- to adopt
an energy source more easily controlled and less of a burden on the
balance of payments - the exact opposite of the likely effects of current
nuclear programmes.
Of course these initial attempts to analyse the whole nuclear energy
picture are rather crude and likely to be modified. But. proponents of
nuclear power unlikely to find much comfort in Price's initial
assumptions, which are conservative, giving nuclear power the benefit of
the doubt on any questionable points. The grade of uranium assumed
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prediction Is the spread of what is now a cliche which will haunt the
world, or what is left of it, over the next twenty years: 'The peaceful use
of atomic energy'.
Implicit in this idea is the belief that the harmful consequences of any
process can be suppressed-as though gelignite could be reserved for
quarrying or electronics for hi-fi, a notion as risible as it is dangerous. The
inevitable byproduct of nuclear pOwer, the production of Plutonium 239,
a fissile material, chemically separable from the rest of the fission
products, has been used, and will be again, to make a bomb.
To get some idea of the scale of the problem, consider first the average
nuclear power station with an electrical output of 1000 megawatts. In a
year this reactor will Produce about 500 kg of Plutonium which as we
shall see later is enough for between one-fifth and a hundred bombs.
Projecting the likely growth in nuclear generating capacity using figures
provided from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the growth in
possible bomb production, capacity of the world is shown in the table
below (3).
Most of this plutonium will be separated and refined in plants operated
under strict supervision by the major powers, most notably in the United
States. Nevertheless the possibility of some of it being 'diverted' is very
real. Even in the most strictly supervised..plants there is a MUF factor -
Material Unaccounted For - of nearly one per cent. This does not mean
necessarily that the plutonium is missing, it merely reflects the degree of
uncertainty in how much actually went in to the separation plant in the
first place. But it also means that if an " amount of plutonium less than
the MUF factor were removed from the plant the theft could not be
detected. By the year 2000, even allowing for improvements in saying
techniques the world MUF factor may be the equivalent of 5 tons of
plutonium annually, enough for 500 or more bombs.
At the international level the signs are that we are on the very point of a
large increase in the number of nuclear powers, sparked off partly by the
Indian test explosion which used plutonium provided by Canadian-&
supplied reactors.
Professor Ephraim Kauir, President of Israel has been quoted as saying
that his country had-the capability of making nuclear weapons using
plutonium from a research reactor at Dimona in the Negev, and there
have been persistent rumours that the Israelis have already made several
bombs. President Ali Bhutto has gone on record as, saying that Pakistan
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the world have learned how to reinforce each other and to divide the
opposition, so as to convert every international arrangement, as well as
each international crisis, Into an internal victory for their own approach':
Witness too the recent Ford Brezhnev agreement at Vladivostock on
arms 'limitation' which is no limitation at all, but an endOrsement of the
ambitions of the military on both sides. . . Neither side has a real interest
in 'detente' since It would inevitably mean\ a greater concentration on
internal affairs and the class tensions produced. What the bomb has given
each set of rulers is a monumental diversion in the class struggle. What it
has prevented is not so much war as revoIution.
If one accepts this line of argument that the bomb has become, however
obliquely, a weapon in the class war then it becomes possible that a
revolutionary might consider turning the weapons of the ruling class back
on itself. Quite how, and in what specific circumstances, it could be used
is more difficult to visualise. The use of nuclear weapons in urban guerilla
warfare has not been given much attention by theorists. Brig Kitson has
yet to bring out High Intensity Operations ; but it is possible to imagine a
situation, in a General Strike or civil disturbance with the authorities at
full stretch, where the threat to use a bomb could mean the panic
evacuation of a city and the possibility of the situation getting completely
out of control. : Another -possible use could be in occupied territory
against massive military targets.
Hand in hand with the possible military advantages of the bomb would
be the indisputable psychological and political boost its possession gives.
Another factor to be considered is the method of 'use' of the bomb,
which in practice would mean threatening to use it since setting it off is
likely to be counterproductive. The technique would be : technologically
advanced blackmail and since the threat's the thing it is not really
necessary to be in possession of a bomb, just to be convincing. This
Would mean manifestly obtaining some plutonium-but very little more.
The question of construction of a workable device can only finally be
answered when someone makes one and sets it off. Nevertheless it is
instructive to see what could be achieved by relying on information freely
available. What follows is in no sense a blueprint for an atom bomb. It
represents merely the fruits of a few hours browsing in a good library.
What it indicates is that most, if not all. the information needed to make
a bomb can be found easily by anybody who knows where to look . .
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
New Toys for Terrorists The Backyard A-Bomb
PLUTONIUM METAL (Pu) exists in five allotropic forms with densities
ranging from 15.92 (delta) to 19.82 (alpha) gm/ cc. At room temperature
the alpha form is stable. Pure plutonium is only mildly radioactive (0.96
Ci/gm) but is one of the most toxic substances known. Like radium it
tends to settle in the bone
and is discharged only very slowly. Quantities of the order of one
microgram can cause leukaemia and death. It oxidizes rapidly in air,
especially if water vapour is present. It should therefore
be handled in a glove box under an inert atmosphere such as Argon.
Plutonium health hazards and the problems of glove-box design have
been discussed in detail at a symposium held
at AERE, Harwell.5 The chemistry and physical properties of plutonium
are very well known, much better indeed than many non-radioactive and
much commoner elements. The Reactor Handbook 6 gives all the details
necessary f or purification. Alpha Pu is a brittle material and
not readily fabricable except by machining. On the other hand the delta
form
has much better ductility and formability, and the addition of small
amounts
of such elements as Aluminium (AI), Silicon (Si), and Zinc (Zn), and some
of the rare earths can result in delta stabilisation at room temperatures.
Plutonium can also be moulded, copper moulds giving the best results.
Machining is the usual method for fabricating the metal to precise shapes
at room temperatures. Alpha Pu machines like grey cast iron.
Overheating must be avoided for precision work with the unalloyed
metal because of its high temperature expansion coefficient, low thermal
conductivity and low phase transition temperature. Carbide or high speed
tools, ground to zero rake angle, arc used for machining. reeds and
speeds are given in The Reactor Handbook.
Criticality
The principle of an atomic bomb is extremely simple. All that is
necessary is to assemble a quantity of fissile material greater than the so-
called 'critical mass' and a divergent neutron chain reaction occurs. In
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low powered explosion which blows the pieces apart-before they have
mated properly; and secondly, to contain the assembly for a time long
enough to ensure that the whole mass participates in the chain reaction
and that localised hot spots do not arise and again blow the mass apart
prematurely.
Ideally the mass should be assembled instantaneously and the chain
reaction then allowed to proceed. Since this cannot happen we will have
to make a compromise and say that the pieces
will have to be assembled before the reaction has developed enough
power
to blow them apart again. Taking
a value of 1 lb. of high explosive as being equivalent to 7.4 x 101
fissions, this would mean that they should be together before about 1016
fissions have occurred, i.e. before more than a few ounces of
high explosive equivalent have been liberated.
A burst of neutrons to initiate the chain reaction as soon as the pieces are
30
brought together can be provided by coating the surface of one with
radium and the other with beryllium.
The behaviour of the neutron flux under these conditions is somewhat
complex and again there is no published data relating to the specific case
of a bomb. However there are a number of papers which deal with a
closely related topic, super prompt critical 'excursions' or accidents in
fast reactors. A bomb can
be looked upon as a limiting case of a
fast reactor. The reactor itself, as well
as containing fissile material also contains coolant and the various
channels to
carry it and t is more open structure helps to reduce ,the force of any
explosion which arises . The seminal paper, if that is the right word, on
this subject appears to be Bethe and Tait's 'An estimate of the order of
magnitude of
an explosion when the core of a fast.
reactor collapses'. This method
according to Okrent and Hummel, is an analytical (or semi-analytical)
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
KAHNSCIOUSNESS TWO : Hudson Report reflections
The Hudson Institute, having nailed its colours firmly to the mast of
"Herman Kahnsciousness" and the ideology of growthmaniac industrial
technocracy, may be beginning to prise them off again. In Hudson
Europe's latest dire prognosis of Britain's future, there is a dismissive but
more-than-usually-sympathetic consideration of the implications of a
zero-growth economy and of technological civilisation. Peter Sommer
has been finding in some of these ruminations a salutary antidote to some
of our more escapist A T fantasies.
MOST OF the stimulus to radicalism in Alternative Technology has come
from a profound belief that a crisis is on
its way- an ecological crash resulting in global pollution and scarcity of
basic natural resources. 'Survival', in the various scenarios and
techniques we have discussed, has always been seen in these terms the
political critiques of 'big' technology merely confirming what one had
decided to do already.
But the environmental crisis is
usually projected as becoming increasingly critical over a twenty-year
span. I don't think there can be any doubt now that a much more
immediate crisis is about to happen the collapse of
many of the institutions that make
up consensus politics in the UK and on a world scale. And before that
feeling of smug satisfaction even has a chance to pass from your cortex to
your facial muscles to form a knowing grin - try and work out just some
of the scenarios for how the collapse will take place ....
These doomy thoughts are prompted
by the Hudson Institute's recent detailed forecast about the future of
Britain and by the reception it got.
The Hudson Institutes are easy to hate. Their claim 'to have no official
political or ideological doctrine' and to be 'independent organisations
whose
sole commitments are to intellectual seriousness and the public interest'
indicates at best the objective-social-scientist-as-God syndrome and at
worst the front of a propaganda
hothouse with espionage as a sideline. They speak of "intervening" in
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
All Hands To The Spade: Home-Grown Food Can Make a Major
Contribution to Britain's Food Production says Patricia Pringle
IT MIGHT, at first sight, seem unlikely that gardens and allotments could
contribute by any significant amount to Britain's food supplies when
compared with the output of the agriculture industry. But it is estimated
that the produce of gardens, allotments and similar plots of ground
totaled 10 per cent of all food produced in this country during the
Second World War. as a result of the 'Dig for Victory' campaign.
In 1939, before the campaign. there were 100,000 acres of land devoted
to allotments in England and Wales. Unproductive land was then
requisitioned for wartime food production, and 40,000 acres
of parks, football grounds and similar spaces were converted to
allotments, forming a total of 140,000 acres being
'dug for Britain'.
By 1967, however, this area had dwindled far below the pre-War level
and was only 66,000 acres, comprising 40,000 acres of urban allotments
and 26,000 acres of rural allotments. Allowing for the percentage of
allotments which are vacant, 54,000 acres of land were being cultivated
in 1967.2
But it would not be correct to think that a high rate of food production
from domestic sources could only be achieved by re-requisitioning public
land, for a great part of wartime food production came from private
gardens. The relative contribution of garden produce as com\pared with
allotment produce is not known, but considering the acreage of private
gardens, the contribution was probably large, since even with
requisitioned land the amount of land devoted to allotments must have
been much
less than the amount of land devoted
to private gardens.
The area of private gardens at the time has not been recorded, but the
present day area of private gardens is estimated as 620,000 acres in
England and Wales,3 that is, more than nine times the amount of land at
present used as allotments.
What is the output of this land?
In 1951 a study was made into garden use in more than 600 gardens in
UC09: page 94
Undercurrents 9: Jan-Feb 1975
calculations show that this argument still holds with 1970 prices.
The very high productivity of allotment type holdings explains why home
food production made such a contribution to war-time food production.
Can such a contribution be made again?
The report of the Departmental Committee of Inquiry into Allotments
published in 1969 suggested that there would be no significant financial
value to the country in increasing the area
of land devoted to allotments. The committee stated that the annual
import bill for fresh vegetables in 1966, the year of study, was £43
million,
of which £22 million represented vegetables which could not be grown
in
this country as they were imported out of season. The report suggested
that the potential for import saving was therefore £21 million, and that
this saving would not justify increasing the area of allotments when the
land
could be used more profitably in other ways. 7
The evidence on which this conclusion is based is open to criticism.
Firstly, the import bill for fresh vegetables in 1966 was £54.7 million,
according to the Economic Development Committee for the Agricultural
Industry. 8 The extra £11 million is
in respect of imports of peas and beans, officially considered as part of
the arable sector and not the horticultural sector to which, presumably,
the £43 million pounds quoted by the Committee of Inquiry refers.
Furthermore,
the import bill for fresh fruit was £114.1 million.
Considering both fruit and vegetables, £44.9 million was for imports
which could be grown in this country, i.e. not tropical produce or out of
season produce. This comprises £27.8 million for fruit. The potential
saving therefore is twice that stated by the Committee of Inquiry, since
fruit could be produced
as well as vegetables.
Secondly, the value of imported processed fruit and vegetables has not
been taken into account. Leaving aside imports of processed tropical
foods,' we imported £36.3 million pounds worth of frozen, dried,
canned, pulped and pickled food in 1966.9 So the direct potential saving
UC09: page 96
Undercurrents 9: Jan-Feb 1975
0.2, that is, the energy contained in the food produced is only one-fifth of
the energy input. In the private garden or allotment, much of this energy
is replaced by human energy, so the food produced is even more
valuable, since it
has needed much less fuel to make.
In addition, the garden makes a
positive contribution not only by replacing purchased food but also by
providing an alternative diet; for example, growing one's own carrots
instead of buying them represents a direct replacement, but eating home
grown plums instead of imported peaches represents an alternative diet
which helps to make the country more nearly self-sufficient. Home grown
peas replace not only purchased fresh peas,
but also purchased canned or frozen peas. (Canned and frozen peas and
beans
accounted for 27% of the annual expenditure on vegetables other than
potatoes in 1970).
In our own household we estimate that the garden provides us with food
worth about £1 per week at shop prices, but cuts the weekly food bill by
about £2, since we adapt our diet to make the most of vegetable dishes.
This, I suspect, was the case during the war; gardens were producing
10% of the nation's food because the diet contained more vegetable
dishes.
By preserving one's own food one can
make even greater savings, provided that one accepts a slightly different
diet. For example, 'home-bottled black-currants car replace imported
oranges (and provide more vitamin C per ounce).
Changes in diet could therefore increase the potential saving by replacing
tropical foods with home-grown alternatives, by replacing processed
foods with fresh, and by replacing purchased processed foods with home-
processed foods.
Vegetables are among the major 'protective' foods, providing vitamins
and minerals. If they made up a greater proportion of the average diet
than they do today, we might well find that the nutritional value of the
average diet would be higher and the carbohydrate content lower, which
would be good for the nation's health.
Best and Ward found that the proportion of the garden cultivated for food
UC09: page 98
Undercurrents 9: Jan-Feb 1975
planted
with cabbage.
Many of the plants, which are harvested through the winter are the
sort of plants which spend the first few months on their lives in a seed or
nursery bed, therefore they are not taking up the full area for the full
period of time. If these crops are planted out finally in ground which has
first produced an early crop of, say, potatoes
or broad beans, then they would be more efficient users of the ground.
Since most of these plants (kale, broccoli, leeks, brussels sprouts,
winter cabbage) are planted out finally in June or July, then their period of
growth could be shortened by 2·3 months for the purposes of the chart,
provided that the ground they move into has not been lying idle until
then; so their nutrients per unit area per month would be higher. Very
efficient and hard working gardeners plant out these long-term crops in
two stages. First, seed is sown in a seed bed, then the seedlings are
planted out at half the final spacing in a waiting bed, then planted out at
the final full spacing
in September - which makes for a
little more space. But it does mean more work. Another way to increase
the nutrients per area is to 'inter-crop' that is, to grow a small crop
between a widely spaced crop; or to 'catch crop' that is, to grow a quick
crop between slower plants, which is harvested before the main crop
needs the room. Inter-cropping and catch-cropping theoretically double
or triple the produce of the garden, but the tighter the planting the more
work there is, so if one does not keep the garden well cultivated,plants
get overcrowded and yields drop off. Trying to squeeze in too much
means that it is difficult to get access to the rows and so plants are not
thinned or hoed when they need it, or else they
are damaged by trampling. Keeping this in mind, the chart can be used to
work out good combinations.
No allowance has been made for waste, peelings and parings, since
different people reject different parts of the crop; some people eat pea
pods and
turnip greens and some do not. The yields quoted come from a variety of
sources and are on the low side rather than the high. They should not be
taken as anything more than guidelines.
Table IV shows the most productive vegetables per 10 square feet per
month. The most important factors are the yields of Vitamins A and C and
of iron and calcium.
The plants which I consider to be the best bargains for small gardens are:
Summer: Turnip, spinach, chard, cabbage, beet-root, carrots, broad
beans.
Winter: Kale, chard, spinach, cabbage, turnip, parsnip.
For storing: Potato. broad beans, carrot, onions, parsnip.
But if turnip greens are not eaten,
the turnip is not nearly so efficient. And if one is not particularly fond of
some
of the winning vegetables it would be
silly to grow them; although one could get the most nutrients if the entire
garden was planted with turnips or kale, if they are not eaten there is not
much point in the exercise. It is better tO,grow small amounts of the
efficient vegetables; most gardeners grow too much and have to
give half their lettuces and runner beans away, instead of growing just
enough
of a wide range of crops to last all year~
Table V shows the average British person's consumption of fruit and
vegetables. Table VI makes a calculation of the area needed to supply his
needs in vegetables, and points out that the area would produce much
more food if eating patterns were changed slightly, and more fresh winter
food was eaten. .
Finally, how can one increase the effective growing area when space is
limited? Inter-cropping, so that the ground is never empty, is the basic
method. I have also been experimenting with 'vertical gardening', using
special containers so that the plants stack up on top of each other. One
technique is to use pipes, with slits cut in the sides and pulled out to
make pockets, on
the principle of the strawberry pot. This system has been used
successfully for tomatoes and cucumbers in greenhouses;17. I have been
using sections
of 4-inch diameter plastic drainpipe, wIth the pockets cut by a saw and
pulled out when the pipe was heated. Lettuces grow very well, cabbages
and cauliflowers hearted up but were a bit small, probably because the
UC09: page 102
Undercurrents 9: Jan-Feb 1975
1972.
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Manual of Nutrition, HMSO,
1970 /home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetable$. HMSO.
Table I Nutritional Composition of Vegetables per ounce
Table II Times for Planting and Harvesting, methods of storing and
suggested yields
Table IV Most Productive Vegetables (Le. Highest Production of Nutrients
Per 10 square feet per Month)
Table V British National Averages for Expenditure on Fruit and Vegetables
in 1970. (Calculated from Household Food Consumption and
Expenditure /970 and J 97/.)
Table VI A calculation for the area needed to supply one person with the
average British consumption of vegetables for a year.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
REVIEWS: Offensive Missiles/ We shall not be MIRVed/ Race & IQ/
Value Today/ Limits of the City/Makin' It/ Fields, Factories &Workshops
The UNSPEAKABLE in Pursuit of the UNTHINKABLE
Offensive Missiles Stockholm paper 5. By Professor Kosta Tsipsis for
SIPRI. (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) Sveavagen 166.
8113 - 46 Stockholm Sweden. pp. 33.
We Shall Not Be Mirved By Maurice Herson and Dan Smith of CND, 14
Grays Inn Road, London WC1. 15 separate Fact-sheets. 25 + postage.
THE SIPRI pamphlet, Offensive Missiles
(i. e. Inter-Continental Nuclear Missiles) aims at exposing the deception
of recent US proposals. Written in August 1974, it reveals thE real
intentions behind US Defence Secretary Schlesinger's war-call in
February. Schlesinger wanted greater accuracy for the existing US missiles
and revealed the new
US strategy, which involves re-targeting away from Soviet cities and to
missile silos - implying the possibility of the US making
a 'first strike' as it is termed in jargon.
If the US planners really believe in this possibility, it may be the most
dangerous arms race development yet.
Missile accuracy is the crucial point in such a strategy, as the pamphlet
precisely explain A central section on missile physics shows bow the
UC09: page 106
Undercurrents 9: Jan-Feb 1975
might well feel able to destroy the Soviet Forces completely. Th The
aggressive political posture adopted by the US in the wake of such
thinking could generate a stream of 'Cuba' incidents -
and an end to deterrence - for ever.
A permanent end to nuclear weapons has of course been CND's cause
for 16 years. The title of this pamphlet misleads a little for
the sake of the pun, since the leaflet provides a factual background to
and history of
nuclear weapons, and of the CND's own campaigns. It is designed to
satisfy 'a constant stream of requests for information on the campaign and
on nuclear
weapons. 'Various different sheets describe the construction and physics
of Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, and their effects on
houses and people. Sections on Polaris,
NA TO, and British Defence expenditure lead to a consideration of the
concepts of deterrence, and the string of worthless treaties. A hideous
quotation from Britain's 1961 Foreign Secretary, Douglas\Home; "The
British people are prepared if necessary to be blown to Atomic dust"
introduces a very brief criticism of popular arguments on British Nuclear
Policy.
A serious and successful attempt is made to avoid the use of the
mystifying jargon of the nuclear strategists, although the odd phrase does
creep through. Unfortunately, a couple of contradictions have crept in;
blast waves crash through successive pages at 100 mph and 2000 mph,
for instance. On the whole, however, it does a good job of setting out in a
clear and concise way the important points of information needed
for a successful nuclear disarmament campaign. A list of films, with
distributors, as well as lists of books and pamphlets, provides useful
information for meeting organisers.
A flexible format has been used, perhaps to allow easy continuous
revision and updating. A larger version, with details of SA L T and
Schlesinger proposals, and the implications of the Indian * and Israeli
stockpiles, could be a useful first revision.
It might also be informative to include some analysis of the social
structures,
the US military-industrial system, for example, which have brought this
situation about. But then, CND has faced dilemma over the extent of
appropriate radicalism, from its inception.
Duncan Campbell
* CND do publish a separate pamphlet After the Indian Bomb', also by
Dan Smith. lOp.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
"The American Ruling Class ... is attempting to build another eugenics
movement .. "
Give a Dog a Low IQ .... Racism, fQ and the Class Society.
An American Progressive Labour Party. Pamphlet reprinted jointly by the
Campaign on Racism, IQ and the Class Society, and Humpty Dumpty. 68
pages & appendices Price 40p, from CRIQS c/o BSSRS,
9 Poland St, London WI V 3DG, or Humpty Dumpty, 28 Redbourne Ave,
London N3 2BS.
WITH THE amount of literature on the race and IQ controversy
increasing rapidly, a short pamphlet on the subject is welcomed. The
emotive language of this booklet will probably cause some academics to
disregard
it but this is a pity as-the authors make many valid points in their
shredding of the arguments of Jensen and his cronies.
The pamphlet was originally directed at American readers. It is mainly the
work of American scientists, and the American political consequences of
the work are emphasised. This inevitably makes the pamphlet less
valuable for British readers, and perhaps a little alteration, such as more
on the work of Eysenck and more on British consequences of the
controversy, would have improved it.
The book begins with a review of some of the more bland statements by
scientists and politicians on the subject over past years. It argues that the
American ruling class, through
the government and media, is attempting to build another eugenics
movement like that of 1915-1 925, when there
was a campaign to increase racism
for political reasons. The review goes
on to show how eventually this type
of eugenics can lead to situations
discussed more fully are the effects on results of the colour of the tester
and the testing environment in general.
The pamphlet then discusses compensatory education and the heritability
of IQ. It is pointed out
that Jensen's arguments on this subject appear to be his best, as they are
full of complicated statistics and mathematics which are very difficult to
understand. The pamphlet shows
how meaningless the arguments are
by describing the pitfalls of twin and kinship studies. The last section
shows how heritability is misused to 'prove' that black/white differences
are genetic. The book ends by calling for
a campaign to combat racism. Appropriately it is reprinted in the UK by
just such a campaign.
Hilary Madge
SAY: 'I am going to read a short paragraph. 'When 1 have finished you
are to repeat as much of it as you can. Yo~ don't need to remember the
exact words, but listen carefully so that you can tell me everything it
says.'
Then read the following passage:
'Tests such as we are now making are. of value both for the advancement
of science and for the information of the person who is tested. It is
important for science to learn how people differ and on what factors
these differences depend. If we can separate the influence of heredity
from the influence of environment we may be able to apply our
knowledge so as to guide human development. "Ie may thus in some
cases correct defects and develop abilities which we might otherwise
neglect.'
Sample Answer:- 'Tests such as we are now making are for the benefit of
the people taking them and for science. We can separate the heredity
from the environment and see how much people differ. '
The questions and answers shown above are from a copy of the Stanford-
Binet Intelligence Test, supposedly available only to psychologists and
school medical officers. The copies, from an anonymous source (not a
million miles away from CRIQS? )are being distributed ''to familiarise as
many people as possible with the answers" and to " destroy a powerful
tool for controlling and labeling people ". (Don 't ask us where to get a
the ears who didn't think they were a rip-off? The essential message can
be, and is, summed up in 60 words at the beginning of the article. The
rest is so much journalistic polyfilla, something to put between the ads. It
has no place in a magazine that seriously tries to be useful.
I have equally little time for the articles on stamp and coin collecting and
the art market: they seem to me pernicious in that they encourage the
belief that the best way to weather out the storm ahead is by aping the
rich rather than by working out a life-style of one's own; irrelevant,
because most people in this~~country have no spare cash anyway;
and misleading because they assume the future will be like the past and
in particular that inflation will continue unchecked. Maybe it will, but not
necessarily: the main impulse behind the present inflation is the
expectation that it will continue. That expectation
could be disappointed if our Arab creditors lose patience and put the
receivers in to force us to put our affairs in order. Already the foolish
purchasers of luxury homes in London at the height of the 1972 boom
are sitting on losses of 30-40%. So are the City institutions who bought
into farmland in 1973. Everybody knows what's happened to the stock
market. Where will be bubble burst next, I
wonder? ,/
The practical articles, with one exception, are much better. In particular,
Value Today's gardening 'consultant' (and more of that in a moment), Roy
Hay, seems to know what he's about. The January issue features a pull out
vegetable gardening calendar that is pleasingly direct and to the point.
(January: 'Dig vacant spaces'). The technical information is readily
available of course. The main function of articles like this is to be a
stimulus and
a reassurance to those-who have never grown anything and have no-one
to advise them. Other articles, of varying quality, deal with subjects from
economical cooking and home brewing to how
to handle the bureaucracy and how to get the most of the Welfare State
(which gibes, one may think, with magazine's commitment to self-
sufficiency and individual initiative).
The exception that I mentioned was a piece on bread-making by Susan
Campbell in the December issue that completely misrepresents the
current controversy about the merits of whole-meal bread. To say the
least, this shows a curious indifference to the likely prejudices of the
Homespun Paraffin
The Mother Earth News Hand book of Homemade Power
Bantam 374 pp 60p.
IF YOU DON'T MIND the determinedly folksy style favoured by Mother
Earth News then this is a book to buy. It is divided into five sections,
Wood, Water, Wind, Sun and Methane, of approximately equal length.
Each consists of short articles and interviews most of which have
appeared already in Mother Earth News. The emphasis is on the practical:
'How To Build - And Use! - A Solar Water Heater'; " built a wind-charger
for 5400!' There is a 14-page bibliography listing 300 publications and
suppliers. At 60p (the price of 2 gallons of paraffin) the book is 30%
cheaper here than in the States, which can't be bad. There is snow on
Snowdon as I write and we face the prospect of the bleakest winter since
1962/63. Looks like we'll need all the home-made power we can get:
truly this book'" is a practical tract for the times. -
Chris Hutton-Squire
TERRIBLE TO CONTEMPLATE
THREE NEW books about the future, none of which it's possible to raise
much enthusiasm for. Much the strongest of the three, though, is Man-
Made Futures (Hutchinson/Open University, 365 pp,: £2.75), a set of 38
articles by everyone from Benn To Bookchin on aspects of technological
change and innovation, forecasting, design problems - and the political
aspects. Man-Made Futures will _ '\ doubtless be useful to anyone
involved in, well, that sort of thing.
Human Futures- Needs, Societies, Technologies, 181pp for £5.50 from
IPC Science and Technology Press Ltd, 32 High St., Guildford, Surrey, is a
set of nine papers from a Conference on Futures Research held in Rome
in September 1973. It's an impossibly - academic mixture of stuff ranging
from Mumford's Technics and Human Culture to Cole and Sinclair's
Computer Models for World Problems and Policy Formation. For the
University Librarian in your life.
Meanwhile at the other end of the market lurks, Roberto Vacca's The
Coming Dark Age (50p for 176pp from Panther.) Doom is apparently
upon us, and Vacca gives hearty of the details - 450 million dead, with
the crisis somewhere between 1985 and 1995, due to synergistic
collapse of the life-support systems of the cities ~ but produces no solid
evidence. The book is also very dated, (it predicts vast increases in
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
WATCH THIS SPACE!
SPACE IN UNDERCURRENTS get proportionately more expensive the
more you use it. These are our rates:
Small ads: 2p per word, 150 words maximum ( except h special cases).
Display ads: Full page 11"x 7"~'·} -(5U.OO (1 page,max~
Half page (11 "x 3~" or 7!"x 5~") - £24.00
Quarter Page (52"x 3~") - £11. 00
Eighth Page (5 1/2"x 1 1/4"~" or 2~"x 3~") -£5. ')0
All advertisements (including display ads) must be paid for in advance.
(though free ads may be available:try us
HARDWARE
THINKING OF BEEKEEPING All equipment. Send for list. Honey
Producers, 66, High Street, :i\.Malmesbury, Wilts. BRAD'S SOLAR ROOF
PLAN. Complete do-it-yourself info (drawings. costings, suppliers. snags,
plumbing, even the electronic control circuitry)
for the elegant canopy that made the New Scientist cover story of
September 19t~ 1974. 8 months hot water (126 F,
52 C) for Ip/day; we've had over 21 kilowatts from our 60 sq.. roof. And
at £8/sq.m., it's cheaper than tiles. No rip-off. 25p plus SAE from BRAD,
Church-stoke. l\Montgomery, Wales. (Any surplus, we promise, goes to
Fund further A T research. ) HEDGEHOG HAND CARDING and Spinning
Equipment -made to order for beginners and professionals. hand-carders,
Drum carders, ~and Canadian Indian Spinners.
I try to keep prices low. SAE enquiries welcomed. T.J. Will-cox, Wheat-
croft, Itching-field, Horsham, Sussex. COURSES
MIDDLESEX POLYTECHNIC BSc and BSc Honours in Society and
Technology. This four-year sandwich course offers you the opportunity to
study the natural and social sciences and their interdependence. You can
enter with A-levels in any two subjects. The course provides an
understanding of the complex relationships between science and
technology, enabling you not only to understand your own
place in contemporary society, but to work responsibly with the benefits
technology can bring.
Write or telephone for further details and an application form to:
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
UNDERCURRENTS NEEDS AN ACCOUNTANT
who combines sympathy with our aims with a fingertip familiarity with
the Companies Acts and the requirements
of the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise. We'd like him/her to sort
out our accounts and convince the taxmen, when the time comes, that
we really are non-profit making. We can It afford to pay the kinds of fees
that accountants are accustomed to: in fact, no accountant in his right
mind would take the job. If you fit this description, just write to
UNDERCURRENTS,NTS 275 Finchley Road, London NW3
Another professional person we need is a~,
preferably someone interested in, and familiar with,
the structure of common ownership companies, to
weed out some anomalies in our Memorandum ::and
Articles of Association, and to give us general advice
on how to stay out of prison.
RESURGENCE
a journal of the Fourth World. Articles on
the technology of liberation. small, simple, alternative, ecological and
organic life style.
Regular columns by E. F . Schemata and Geoffrey Ashe.
Sub £2.50 per year.
Cheques payable to Resurgence, 275 Kings Road, Kingston, Surrey,
England.
'sanity voice of CND
Bi-monthly 10p
14 Grays Inn Rd, London WC1 IT’S What living under the threat of
thermonuclear destruction is all "';-, ...... +-. _ .11
-
WILDCAT
WILDCAT is published monthly at 15p and includes a four-page
supplement available at cost price to other libertarian groups, News,
Reviews notes, argument, plus WILDCAT information.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
NOW, THE BAD NEWS
SORRY, FOLKS, but,the price of Undercurrents is just gonna have to go
up from the next issue (No 10) , Postage rates are increasing on
March 17th by about 2p (40% of what we now pay) on UK copies, and
by no less than 100% on overseas copies sent at printed paper rate,
We just can't stand increases like that,
coupled with the soaring costs of everything else, without doing
something about it.
So Undercurrents 10 will cost you 45p from bookshops and news-agents,
and subscriptions taken out from No 10 onwards will go up to £2,50 for
six issues (by second class! surface mail, anywhere), We will also, in an
unashamed move to subsidise bookshop and newsstand
sales, be putting up the cost of back numbers
to 50p ( including postage), Full details of the new rates, including
airmail prices, will be in the next issue,
It may be some consolation to hear that we're also increasing the size of
the magazine to 60-pages, which we hope will be the normal size of
issue from now on,
The next issue will also be a special "joint issue" with Resurgence
magazine. It will
still have all the regular Undercurrents features (Eddies, Reviews, DIY,
Products Reviews,
A T Directory and so on) but in the remaining pages we will be jointly
examining some of the many different strands that seem to be coming
together to make up a "movement towards
a new and better society -- land reform, alternative energy sources, AT,
workers' control, alternative medicine, meditation,
and so on, and so on. It'll be good: don't miss it:
-----~-------
WHY NOT SEll UNDERCURRENTS?
We don't expect anyone to do it 'just for the money', but we don't see
why you should do it for nothing, either. Selling magazines requires a
certain amount of time and effort, and we think such efforts should be
rewarded at rates comparable to those which prevail in the distribution
trade.
So we're offering you a discount of 40 per cent if you order more than 10
copies from us. After we've paid the cost of posting them to
you; we're hoping to get about the same nett amount back as we would
have got from a straight distributor.
But if you don't feel like being
a s~salesperson , why not just take a fey copies round to your local news
\agent or bookshop? They'll ask for
a 25 to 33 per cent discount, usual\ally, and they won't pay you until
they've sold the copies, but the
few coppers you'll make on the
deal will at least pay for you; bus fare.
I enclose a cheque/postal order for £ .... in payment for . ~- .. copies of
Undercurrents Number .... at 21p a copy. (Minimum order. 10 copies). I
understand that Undercurrents will buy back any copies which I return in
good condition at 21 p per copy.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
See what you've been missing
BACK issues of Undercurrents numbers 1. 2. 3,4 and 5 are now sold out.
But we're hoping to reprint numbers 1,2,:1 & 4, along with early issues of
Eddies (which used to be mailed out separately to subscribers only) in the
form of a book. We can't do it for another few months. though, because
all the capital we can get is needed just to keen current issues coming
out. and we can't afford to tie up money in re-printing hack issues which
may take years to nay for themselves. We'll be announcing when the
book is ready. i\meanwhile\e, to order any of the following issues. just
fill in tho form on page '18.
* Undercurrents 6 . Heat Pumps- how they work and what they can do.
Organic Living Experiment- part 1. Do We Need An Alternative
Electronics Industry? Two DIY Wind Generator designs from France. Peter
Harper's New, Improved Alternative Technology Guide. Running Your Car
On Gas - complete DIY Instructions. Petrol Stinks- how petrol pollutes,
how gas is cleaner. V-later Running Wild - a guide to home-built water
power plant. What's Left of
Alternative Technology- part 2 of Peter Harper's evolving l\movement
1 Jesus Terrace
New SQUd'C
Ariuna Whole-foods 12. Mil! Rd.
OXFORD
EOA Books
34 Cowley Ad. Maxwell_
9-10 S, Clements
MANCHESTER Orbit Book
Whille St Manchester 4.
Percivals
Peter House Oxford Street. M1
Wheeler's.
36 Ann Street. M_2
Grass Roots Bookshop 178 Oxford Rd, M.13
Bookflair
Mount St. M.2
EDINBURGH
Better Books
11 Forrest Rd. EHl
BIRMINGHAM
Tapetus Bookshop 201 Corporation SI.
Prometheus Books 134 Alcester Road. Mn5~lev. B13
Birmingham Peace Centre 18. Moor St, Ringway.
632 Bookshop
632 Bristol Rd,
Selly Oak B29
BATH
Searights Bookshop Ltd
9 New Bond St Place, B1 Bath
Community Work$hop la The Paragon. 81
GLASGOW
John Smith & Son
89 Otago SI. G 1 W2
A,F & J Ba,rotl
17B Byres Rd, G.12
LEICESTER
Black Flag Books
1 Wilne St.
Leicester University Bookshop University Rd.
BRIGHTON
Symposium
12 Market St. BNl
Public House Bookshop
21 Little Preston Street
CARDIFF
One 0 Eight
108 Salisbury Rd, Cathays. Cardiff
The Miskin St Bookshop 19 Miskin St,
Cathays. Cardiff.
BoOkShop The Fourth Idea. 14 Southgate
BRADFORD 1
Chris Pitts
27 St Thomas' Hill
CANTERBURY. Kent Bogus
21 Princes Avenue
HULL, E. Yorks
OUt of Time Hyde Park House King X Road
King X. HALIFAX
News From Nowhere 9 Sefton Drive LIVERPOOL 8
John Sheridan
19 Anlaby Rd
HULL
Books & Things
9 Oswald St LANCASTER
The Other Branch 7 Regent Place
LEAMINGTON SPA, Warwicks Bri5lOw$
4 Bride\Ne1t Alley
NORWICH, NorfOlk Mushroom
261 Arkwright St
NOTTINGHAM
Dave Taylor
8 The Crescent
PURBROOK Hem
Spice Island Osborne Rd
SOUTHSEA. Hants John Smith & Son
Stirling University Bookshop
STIRLING
Rare & Racey
166 DevonShire St SHEFFIELD
Conservation Books 28 Bearwood Ad WOKINGHAM.
Berkshire Posse Mount Farm Escrick
YORK
EIRE
Rea's Bookshop St Stephens Green Dublin
Eblana Bookshop Grafton Street Dublin
An up-dated and extended version of this list will appear' ill our next issue.
Printed by Prestagate Ltd. 0734-583958