Hi Morgan
It's Ruth Macdougall here, I believe Susie has told you about me and the arts residency I'm currently involved in up on the North East Coast...a two year residency infact! and she suggested that you would be a good person to contact considering the ideas that I'm swilling about at the moment.
My time up here is supposed to be split equally between developing a youth arts programme over the whole of Sutherland and developing my own practice..it's a pretty cushy number I have to admit but in reality, I have spent most of my time concentrating on the youth arts aspect of the job.
However, I find my self with a two week window of opportunity to concentrate on my own work entirely and was wondering what you might be able to tell me about dynamos?
I am very interested in environmental stewardship and was inspired by a SNH symposium that was held in Inverness to coincide with the Dalziel and Scullion, Great Glen House Commission.
www.morethanus.com
The speakers were all fantastic and picked up on several ideas I had already been considering since returning from a two week Triangle Arts workshop in the Zambian bush.
I had taken with me, a wind up torch /radio as we were in quite an isolated area of the countryside without knowing the history of wind up radios and their connection to Africa. Interestingly, the Zambians I met had never seen a wind up torch or radio, but after a while, this made sense as they all had solar panels strapped to their mud huts...
Up on the North East coast we are surrounded by wind turbine fields and the deeper social and economical effects of global warming are clear given the now absent fishing fleets. I'm not convinced by wind turbines..I think solar power and water turbines are the way forward. I was really interested to hear from your dad that you have been involved in projects in Sri Lanka to help create sustainable sources of energy in the form of water wheels. Could you tell me some more about that project and what it involved?
I'm fascinated by the man powered dynamos and they compliment the ideas of physical endurance that have characterised my work over the past few years..I've asked everyone and their dog ''how do you easily and cheaply make a dynamo'' but I'm not getting the answer that I'm looking for..I would ideally like to use recycled materials and envisage a really big dynamo, one that would produce a light and need the physical and sustained energy of a community to power it. Either that, or several hundred small dynamos that could be planted and involve several hundred people simultaneously..I like to think big!
If you have any ideas, advice or know of anyone who you might be able to direct me to, I'd be really grateful.
It would be good to meet you one day, I read your travel blog and have very itchy feet as result..I have an exhibition in Chile in September of this year but that seems very far away...
Good luck with your work
cheers, ruth
24.01.08
Hi Ruth,
Nice to hear from you. Sounds like an interesting residency you have up there. I read your site too and was also a tad jealous. I've always wanted to spend some time isolated somewhere in the North of Scotland and attempt to become part of the community. Where are you from originally ?
I like the way you're thinking about it all. I was a bit of a newcomer to the energy field when I went out to Sri Lanka but grappling with the puzzle of energy production on a local level gives you a real insight into the BIG problems. It's an addictive idea. And of course making it from 'nothing' is a rewarding sort of alchemy. I was involved with a group who assist remote, mountain communities to build their own 'micro-hydro' power stations, which are miniturised, makeshift versions of what power cities. In many of these rainforest sites, where there is a reasonable supply of running water, they are more advantageous over solar. Being a mechanical system however, things wear out and need replaced but the amount of power that can practically be harnessed is much greater than solar. I liked the philosophy of the organisation which was all about 'appropriate technology' - stuff that can be sourced locally or a manufacture set up that in turn might create wealth or useful industry for the region - rather than hi-tech solutions from the west that might not add anything to the long-term development of the country. Crucially, these kind of solutions might best suit your budget/ aesthetic.
Take what you can out of this:
Some relevant posts from my trip:
http://www.digitalkicks.co.uk/blog/2006/11/13/sinharaja/
http://www.digitalkicks.co.uk/blog/2006/11/10/adding-pictures/
Practical Action - The guru 'appropriate technology' organisation for inspiration. There are loads of resources here. Be sure to check out 'Hands on TV'- really practical videos of the projects:
http://www.practicalaction.org/
http://www.handsontv.info/
These guys might be useful in the nuts and bolts side of things - very much in the same area:
http://www.ewb-uk.org/
Now. This lo-fi stuff might not appeal to you. If so, get back in touch, or in fact, call me - it's easier.
I'm not the world authority on dynamos - in fact I'm not really a very diligent engineer. I'm a designer and I tend to find experts to do the painfully boring stuff but I have a reasonable understanding of what's going on. In it's simplest terms, a dynamo is just a bunch of wire wrapped around a magnet - http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0015973.html. And you could do just that but it would be pretty inefficient. The thing to note though is that a motor works pretty much the same way in reverse - electrical power is converted to mechanical rotation - and if you take any motor (though some are better than others and that's where you need a geek) wire it up to a circuit and and turn it manually, it will produce current. We cut costs on those projects by not using super-efficient generators (commercial dynamos) and just using motors running backwards. Think of the number of household appliances that are chucked out these days that have perfect working motors in them ? I'm having a little re-cycling idea here ....
Building a really big one ... like, one that would power even one home, will have the potential to zap you dead, so you'll need an electrician on this. How much power are you looking to generate ? Is the power generated to be symbolic or of practical use ?
Hope this gets you started. If you give me your number I'll text you mine .... I don't actually know it yet (new phone)
Better get back to work,
Take care,
Morgan.
