The Green Valleys group helped farmer Alan Williams plan and install a small hydroelectric plant on his steep hillside farm in 2007.  He now generates and sells a significant energy surplus into the National Grid, providing a vital extra income stream at a time of immense pressure on hill farmers, as well as reducing the environmental impact of his own energy use.  The installation has had a minimal visual impact on his lovely hill farm, nestled in the head of a small valley near Abergavenny, and he does not anticipate any significant maintenance or running costs, so the project will pay for itself through the sale of suprlus energy within 3 years.

However, when he initially investigated the potential for setting up a hydro plant, he discovered that although the government officially provides grants to encourage such developments, these grants are tied to specific – very expensive – suppliers.  In the end, it was cheaper to forget about the government scheme and rely instead on the advice and support of the Green Valleys team, who also helped him to find appropriate equipment and the local skills to install it, far more cheaply than under the government-sponsored scheme with its expensive consultancy requirements and limited list of “preferred suppliers”.

This highlights a common problem with top-down government-sponsored schemes:  even if they are well-intended, they are too often tied to large political and commercial interests and fail to address properly the needs and priorities of the intended recipient.  It seems ludicrous that farmers are actually prevented from following their own energy-saving agenda by the prohibitive costs associated with taking part in the government’s “subsidised” scheme, a scheme that is intended to support precisely these projects.

Meanwhile, Green Valleys sees these small-scale projects as a vital step forward in transforming the local economy, not just in terms of energy use but also as a way to generate income for farmers and for local workers who can supply many of the skills needed to carry out installation work.  Green Valleys is continuing to sponsor various energy and conservation schemes across the region, and hopes to expand its activities further as resources allow.  This inspiring and pragmatic approach to grassroots environmental transformation deserves greater recognition and support, both from the community and from the political classes in Wales and beyond.

So let’s hope Green Valleys are successful as one of the finalists in the UK’s Big Green Challenge and manage to claim a share of the £1 million prize: we know they will make good use of the money.

InfoQ is also the place to visit for another intriguing presentation by anthropology professor and former Xerox PARC worker, Lucy Suchman, on Practice-based design: Some obejct lessons.   Many software developers are familiar with the concept of “object-oriented design”, but Lucy Suchman challenges us techies by asking more fundamental questions about how users identify and relate to “objects” in their working environments, and how developers of systems and products can reflect these relationships in their approach to design.  So put aside your UML diagrams and books of patterns and enjoy a fresh perspective on your favourite buzzwords…

Following the recent somewhat uninspiring spectacle of our Prime Minister in his ill-advised YouTube appearance (more of an apparition, really…), I thought I ought to respond by offering a couple of more inspiring alternatives to those of you who are also relatively new to the world of online video enlightenment.  Perhaps somebody should tell Gordon…

Be a TED-head!

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) started out in 1984 as a “conference bringing together people from those three worlds” (About TED).  In the last 25 years it has metamorphosed from a worthy if perhaps slightly dull-sounding caterpillar into a fascinating, challenging and entertaining butterfly, a place where you can find short (20 minute) talks on almost any subject under the sun by a host of experts, artists and others.

• Want to know what went wrong at the Large Hadron Collider?  Ask TED.
• Concerned about climate change?  Watch Al Gore on TED. 
• Want to see and hear Cape Breton fiddle music (you know you do)?  Tune in to TED.
• Do you believe a man can fly?  Soar with TED.
• Want to be happy?  Listen to Matthieu Ricard at TED.

Go on, take some time to cruise from one fascinating talk to another.

Talk Tech

OK, if you’re the kind of person who’d be interested in this one, then you’re probably already watching it instead of wading through this page, but just in case…

Google Tech Talks are a great place to learn about today’s cutting edge information technology, as well as talks on other topics such as monitoring carbon emissions, the history of NASA Ames Research Center, building a bicycle out of old plastic bottles, or how the band Nine Inch Nails use Google Earth to create their own online geo-community. 

Put your work aside and and share some quality time with the Alpha Geeks…

See you there!

So there is a certain frisson when North America’s second largest predator lifts its head from a leisurely breakfast of fresh sedge grass, along the banks of a tidal islet in the Nekite River estuary, and calmly looks you straight in the eye. Suddenly you are no longer the big kid on the block, as that appraising gaze looks you up and down and finds you of no great significance to its owner’s plans for the day.

More…