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The outline of Wales has been uncharitably compared to the shape of
a pig’s head, staring grimly into the damp Atlantic fog. Somewhere near
the pig’s eye is the small town of Machynlleth, nestling under the bare
grey domes and crags of the Powys mountains. A couple of miles northward,
the winding Dulas valley is blotched with sprawling heaps of scrap slate,
dumped at the bottom of the giant gashes in the mountainside where it was
excavated for roof tiles and floors.

A track leads across a stone bridge over the foaming Dulas to a small
car park. Above it, perched on top of a giant pile of waste slate is the
Centre for Alternative Technology.

The centre has survived for 18 years. While the idea of an alternative
technology community high in the Welsh mountains was fashionable in the
early 1970s, by the middle of the Thatcherite 1980s public enthusiasm was
waning. But the project has seen a surge in interest with the greening of
the British public over the past two to three years.

The centre’s community decided to tap into the eco-boom and revamp the
visitors’ centre, set up new displays and facilities, and build a water-powered
railway to run up and down the slate cliff. This will cost around 1 million
Pounds – well beyond the centre’s meagre financial resources.

To find the money the community launched a 1 million pounds share issue
in September 1990, inviting people to buy a stake in the Centre for Alternative
Technology plc. The centre is appealing to backers to invest not just for
profit, but for ideological commitment. The new company will run the display
side of the centre’s work along broadly commercial lines to attract as many
visitors as possible. It will also provide money to the revamped charity
that takes care of courses and other educational work. Although the offer
of a stake in the centre does not end until 29 March, by early January the
centre had raised about 600,000 pounds towards the face-lift.

The 45-metre high cliff railway will ferry visitors from the car park
to the reception area. A sign at the bottom of the track to the centre reads
‘Croeso. Welcome. You are now crossing the green line. We are not connected
to mains electricity.’ And to stress the point, a strip of plastic imitation
grass crosses the track, to announce your passage into the world of renewable
resources.

The centre exists to promote ideas about alternative technology and
environment-friendly lifestyles. It is also home to a community of 30 men,
women and children who have chosen to put these ideas into practice.

More than 750,000 people have visited the centre since it was set up
in 1973. What brings them here? I asked a member of the community in the
comfort of the centre’s restaurant, which has earned an Egon Ronay recommendation.
He sucked his lips and looked out of the window to the mist-shrouded pines
outside. ‘I guess when the weather’s bad it’s somewhere to have a cup of
tea and go to the toilet.’ Indeed the toilets are one of many places where
the centre’s enthusiasts preach their message. On the door of one of the
men’s loos is a display headed ‘Beth a wnawn ni gyda’ch caci!’ – and, translated
for foreign visitors, ‘What we do with your poo!’

Under a picture of a baby dinosaur grinning beside a dinosaur-size poo,
the display goes on: ‘About 400 million years ago, the first land animals
came out of the sea. Unfortunately, at that time there were no toilets.
Animals just had to drop the stuff right there on the ground, and they’ve
been doing it ever since. Now 400 million years is quite a long time and
it is fair to ask – as children sometimes do – why isn’t the whole world
several miles deep in prehistoric poo?’

The display explains how ‘poo’ is naturally recycled to return nutrients
to the soil. But because we regard human sewage as filthy we starve the
land of its nutrients and push it out to sea, where it ends up on our beaches.
‘That’s one of the ideas of the display – to get over the idea that sewage
can be an attractive thing,’ says Jeremy Light, the centre’s biological
coordinator. A British Antartic Survey veteran (which perhaps explains his
skimpily dressed indifference to the skull-numbing cold), Light joined the
centre in 1976, and speaks with passion about alternative sewage systems.

One of the centre’s toilets empties over a pit. Instead of flushing
it with water, visitors throw down a handful of sawdust each time they use
it. ‘It’s a copy of a Vietnamese twin vault,’ Light explained, adding that
the centre often takes and adapts technologies from the developing world.

When the pit is full, the toilet is repositioned over a neighbouring
pit, and the contents of the first are left to compost for a year. By this
time bacteria have decomposed most of the organic matter, the high temperature
generated has killed off most of the pathogens, and the compost is ready
to use. ‘Feel this,’ Light enthused, rubbing the soft loam through his fingers.
‘Isn’t it wonderul!’

All around are small garden beds bursting with greenery just to prove
how well nourished they are. Beautifully drawn displays explain how rotating
crops and encouraging natural predators can fend off pests, preventing the
need for dowsing of kitchen gardens with synthetic pest killers that end
up in our stomachs or our water supply.

The centre’s communal greenhouse is a ‘polytunnel’ made of semicircular
hoops covered in plastic. It cost about 800 pounds and covers the same area
as a dozen small greenhouses. Despite the foul weather, it was pleasantly
mild inside. The ground is divided into individual plots, and steps lead
down to a small pond.

This particular greenhouse is lucky enough to have its own alternative
frost-prevention system. Under the centre lies a million tons of waste slate.
The community has discovered that air in the gaps between the stones stays
at a steady 6 °°ä. The gardeners protect frost-sensitive plants by boring
holes into the slate layer below. When the air temperature falls, the trapped
warm air starts to rise and stabilises the temperature above ground at 5
°°ä.

The centre is perhaps best known for its work on renewable energy sources,
which supply nearly all the centre’s needs. (For backup, the centre relies
on standby generators fuelled by diesel, propane or charcoal.) A major focus
has been wind power, and on a late-autumn day, when a soaking Atlantic gale
races up the valley, it does seem a good idea to make the wind do some useful
work. Within the visitors’ circuit, a collection of chattering windmills
shows that wind-power technology can be anything from DIY to highly sophisticated.
A cannibalised bicycle wheel, whirring hysterically, makes a good teaching
aid (the centre;s shop sells plans on how to make your own); more sophisticated
is the ‘American’ multivane windmill, which was so popular in its heyday
that there were probably 10 million of them worldwide. Others drive dynamos
generating electric current for the displays.

The main turbines are perched over the centre, on a hilltop where they
whistle ferociously in the full force of the wind. The largest is a 15-kilowatt
‘Polenko’ windmill, which cost about 18,000 pounds and provides enough electricity
for about five homes. These relatively simple machines generate about 40
per cent of the community’s renewable energy. Of course, the wind can drop
suddenly and, when this happens, the output of the wind generators falls
too.

Water power provides more than half the renewable energy used by the
centre. A reservoir on the hillside supplies a steady head of water for
two powerful water wheels connected to generators, which produce 3 kilowatts
on average, except in a drought. Children visiting the centre can operate
a giant wooden water wheel, as well as a modern miniature wheel of the kind
the centre uses to generate power.

Under thick cloud and driving drizzle the solar power displays look
rather sad. A water pump, fountain and kettle, all powered by photovoltaic
cells that convert solar radiation into eletricity, lie lifeless under the
rain. Yet it takes only a slight lifting of cloud, without the sun coming
out, for the pump to start spouting water.

Converted quarry workers’ houses show how solar energy can be used passively
to help heat a home directly. A large, black-painted south-facing wall,
covered by a sealed sheet of glass, is warmed by the Sun’s rays. A pump
distributes air, warmed by the black wall, through vents and around the
rooms. Plans for a simple solar water heater made out of a conventional
wall radiator are on sale in the centre’s bookshop. Placed on a south-facing
roof, the heater can pre-warm mains water before it flows into the hot-water
tank. The centre claims that the heater can provide up to 40 per cent of
the energy a household needs for hot water. Even in Britain, small-scale
direct solar heating makes sense. A well-designed building, with windows
on south-facing walls for instance, can use the Sun’s thermal energy without
needing energy-consuming equipment to collect and distribute it.

Options for energy planning

The idea of the centre is to set up ‘a microcosm of national energy
planning’, says Tim Kirby, technical officer and energy consultant. He sees
the centre as representing all those energy generating options that planners
should be considering more as they draw up our national energy strategy.
National energy policy is dictated by the interests of the near monopolies
of the suppliers and producers of fossil and nuclear power, he says. ‘The
most cost-effective investments we can make as a country are not even in
developing new sources of energy, but in conserving it. Yet the conservation
lobby has virtually no representation in the Department of Energy.’

A low-energy house on the visitors’ circuit shows what can be done to
make a house as energy efficient as possible. Its 45-centimetre cavity wall
insulation and quadruple glazing would not be cost-effective for most households,
but it also shows how the cheapest measures, such as draught excluders,
can have a dramatic effect on keeping a house warm.

In charge of the buildings is Pat Borer, the site architect, who joined
14 years ago. The centre has attracted much interest among architects, and
visits by groups of student architects are a regular feature of the centre’s
educational calendar. They look at all the ways in which building and the
building industry interact with the environment, from the way building materials
can affect the people inside, to the influence of underground watercourses.

Architects are among a range of professionals and amateurs coming to
the centre for residential courses. The 1991 menu includes healing herbs,
organic gardening and solar power systems. There is to be a blacksmithing
weekend to ‘give people enough confidence to set up their own small forge
to make and repair small tools.’ Like several of the courses, it is geared
particularly to volunteers requiring alternative technology skills that
they can apply in developing countries.

Most of those who take part in the courses are already committed alternative
technology devotees, but one course is aimed at a wider audience – it shows
how to build your own house. The course uses the design and techniques developed
by British architect Walter Segal, but adapted by the centre to include
other features such as passive solar heating. The materials for these houses
come to about 22,000 pds, and self-build enthusiasts have already set up
about 100 of them. Borer says dedicated amateurs can put up the simple,
timber-frame houses in as little as four months of hard, spare-time work.

To nurture an eco-friendly generation for the future, the centre encourages
school visits. Up to 36 children or students can stay on site for longer
visits in accommodation where they fend for themselves. The idea is to make
the kids think about the question: ‘What is the impact on the Earth of my
living for a week?’, says Borer. ‘It’s a great eye-opener for them.’

They are independent of all central systems – water, power, sewage –
and have to manage their own resources. Initially sceptical and somewhat
reluctant, the kids often pick up on the ideas more quickly than their teachers.
The students have to carry water from a standpipe to the tank in buckets,
so they become acutely aware of how much they use. If they are not careful
and the tank runs dry, they have to spend a couple of hours ridding the
system of the airlock in order to get the water running again.

They control how much energy they consume, drawing from solar panels,
the water turbine and the battery storage system. An instrument panel in
the main hut tells them how well off they are for power. As fuel runs low,
they must decide how they are going to generate more energy. Any firewood
they burn to heat the huts must be replenished, which means collecting and
drying an equivalent amount.

Mountain railways are already a popular feature of the Welsh tourist
circuit. The water-powered version that will greet visitors as they arrive
in the car park is an eloquent introduction to the centre’s philosophy of
using renewable resources where it makes sense. Both carriages on the twin-track
railway will carry large water tanks. To lift visitors from the car park,
water from a reservoir in the upper reception area will fill the tank of
the upper carriage as the lower carriage empties its tank into a pond below.
When it is heavy enough, the upper carriage and its full water tank will
glide down one track, dragging the lower carriage up the other one. Energy
from the braking system pumps water from the collection pond below to the
reservoir above, conserving both water and energy.

Turning my back on the isolated community on top of the old quarry,
I made my way through the darkening mist towards my environmentally hostile
car. Back home the windows still need draught proofing, and the car could
still usefully be donated to a needy cooperative that would make more efficient
use of it. My lifestyle hasn’t changed; but the inspiration is there, and
now I know what I ought to do. Who knows, I might get round to it one day.

James Bedding is an award-winning travel writer with experience of hepatitis
in Egypt, poisoned darts in Venezuela, landslides in the Philippines and
now horizontal rain in Wales.

The Centre for Alternative Technology is 4 kilometres north of Machynlleth
on the A 487 road. For details about the centre or the offer to buy a financial
stake in it, write to CAT, Machynlleth, Powys SY20 9AZ, or telephone (0654)
702400. If for nothing else, visit the centre for its restaurant: the food
is delicious and excellent value.