Current Information

SolarVillage Testfield – March 2011

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Imprint:

6th Edition 03/2011Text: Barbara Kovats, Dieter Duhm,

Jürgen Kleinwächter, Roland Luder, Uli Jung Layout: Boris Bonjour, Roland Luder

Photos and Maps: Simon du Vinage, Roland LuderPublisher: SolarVillage project group

Monte do Cerro7630-392 Reliquias, Portugal

Tel: +351 / 283 635 313solarvillage@tamera.org

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“You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something

build a new model that makes the existing obsolete.”

R. Buckminster Fuller

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ContentsWelcome 7

Testfield 1 9

The next Step: Construction Phase 2 of the Testfield 11

The Idea of the Global Campus 13

Creating Models 13The Further Vision and the TTT-Platform 14

Jürgen Kleinwächter: Future Possibilities for Testfield 1 15

Sketches for the Expansion of the Workshop 19

“The Case Against the Global Economy” from: “The last word - a personal commentary” 20

What is a Subsistence Economy? 22

A message from Tamera “Is Peace possible?” Excerpt from the Project Declaration 1 23

Technical Background:

Construction of an Experimental Biogas Plant 24

The Stirling Engine 25

Construction of a Scheffler Mirror 29

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SunPulse Electric, 2010

Jürgen Kleinwächter demonstrating the SunPulse Water, 2010

Sketch of the TTT-Platform in the future SolarVillage, 2009

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“They dreamt ideas and established will. They brought the horses, birds and so many other beings.

But I never understood how they brought that star in shape of a white bird. It‘s so big.

(But now there is one here.) They came in balloons and zeppelins of many colours.

They built coloured tents and filled them with air. And also the houses of wood and earth.

And heaven liked it. They built lakes and the plants came back. They talked to

the clouds and they said, Rain! And the lakes were filled with water and fish.

Some swam, others were looking at each other, but all had a different light.

Afterwards, they sowed flowers, and they blossomed, they threw ideas into the rivers and the rivers started to flow. And they said to the sun, Stay!

And it stayed.”

Poem by Pedro Portela

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On the 17th of October 2009, now more than a year ago, the Testfield 1 in Tamera was inaugurated. Press and television, along with energy specialists from all over the world witnessed the celebration. We thank everyone who contributed - with finances, working hours and with the power of vision.

The project triggered a lot of interest throughout Portugal. Hundreds of in-terested people, students and visitor groups from all over the country came to see the technology and - sitting under the sun and rain protection of the village design - taste the solar-cooked food. Decentralized solar energy is a necessary future perspective for Europe‘s sunniest country, which has deci-ded to free itself from dependency on oil, and which urgently seeks solutions to counter rural depopulation.

For one year we have been living with the solar kitchen, with the Energy Power Greenhouse and its technology as well as with various solar facilities, and we have tested them in everyday life. We learned to use the devices cor-rectly and to adapt our habits to the course of the sun. We learned to avoid mistakes or to fix them and we undertook the first important upgrades – with the goal, amongst others, of providing energy during rainy periods, for example with biogas.

We also tested the limits of the current facility. We located inadequacies, found out how to fix them and we found out which areas needed more specialists and resources to make this future technology a reliable core for a SolarVillage. We are planning the next construction phase including a workshop with laboratories – a necessary precondition for maintenance, research and further development.

In Testfield 1 we are working on questions that are essential for the life of humankind: questions about energy, water and food. In our current society these areas are part of the system of globalization - centrally directed and controlled. Farmers and regions are losing their independence. Already the legal structures are prepared in Portugal and in many other countries to raise taxes on water, even on rainwater that falls on private land.

For a new beginning it is absolutely essential to leave the old chains of this system of complicity and violence and to build an alternative perspective of subsistence.

Welcome

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We plan to extend Testfield 1 and to start a second construction phase to deepen this research. By the end of 2012 we aim to have erected the basic necessary infrastructure, and combined and tested at least the basic neces-sary knowledge and the corresponding experience.

This brochure is intended to present the current status of our work – please feel free to contact us with any kind of questions!

The overall aim is to build a model in which both the external ecological preconditions and the inner social preconditions for a sustainable and co-operative life on Planet Earth are connected, manifested and lived.

Imagine that on Planet Earth an experiment is actually happening in which the essential questions and issues of humanity are brought together on a small scale: energy, water, food, and social sustainability. A research experiment that starts with 50 people testing and developing conditions for a future worth living. A test arrangement that embeds its community-enabling architecture and energy-production plants into a permaculture water landscape that supplies healthy food and water. An interconnected system of human beings, sun, water and food biotopes, of human com-munity and natural community. It strives to create a model for a future settlement that serves the basic concept of cooperation in all areas of life. A life that no longer destroys the surroundings but on the contrary heals landscapes from the mistakes of the past, desertification, and erosion, and brings back the wilderness – a contribution to avoid climate collapse and to reverse desertification.

This model could create a field that would have an effect on the overall system of life on Planet Earth.

We invite everyone to become part of the experiment, to accompany and support it.

For a future worth living, for our children, and for all beings of our planet.

Barbara Kovats and the SolarVillage team.

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The world needs new settlement models in which the fight between human beings and between hu-mans and nature is ended effectively and lastingly. An essential contribution to this is research on de-centralized energy systems with solar technologies that can be produced locally. In this context, de-centralization means the creation of regional and relatively self-sufficient subsistence economies that are connected with each other, creating a new form of networked self-sufficiency. The worldwide exchange between such networked self-sufficient economies leads to a humane and peace-building form of globalization.

The first Testfield is arising in Tamera‘s “Valley Villa-ge”, where the technology and ecology - Holzer´s permaculture - are applied, tested and further developed.

The core element of the Testfield is the solar tech-nology developed by Jürgen Kleinwächter and his team. In an Energy Greenhouse, solar radiation is focused with Fresnel lenses to heat plant oil. The hot oil flows in a closed circuit and is stored in an insulated tank. Thus the problem of energy storage is solved completely differently than in mainstream solar technology, which often uses ecologically problematic storage methods.

Furthermore the Energy Greenhouse serves as a greenhouse for especially efficient and water-saving production of high-quality organic food. In the future it will also be possible to use it as a roof for an inner building – inspired by the multi-functionality of nature. Our goal is to manifest a

decentralized autonomy in terms of energy, water and food, along with a high standard of living.

The solar heated plant oil supplies a kitchen for about 50 people. The hot oil is led through double-walled pots and in this way the heat is used directly for cooking. Steam is produced ad-ditionally through heat-exchange with the hot oil, allowing steam-cooking , sterilization of medical instruments, desalination of water and many other possibilities.

And the hot oil from the greenhouse drives a Stirling engine, the “SunPulse Electric” which, thanks to the simple oil storage solution, offers electric energy (1.5 kW) as well as cooling energy and mechanical energy, for a saw or a flour mill for example, 24 hours per day. This will be a central aspect of a new energy supply system for a future settlement unit.

A further module of the Testfield is the “SunPulse Water”, a water pump according to the Stirling principle which is driven directly by solar energy (see p. 25).

Another element is a Scheffler mirror which is used for cooking (see p. 29). We continue develop-ment work in order to make baking possible too. The concentrated solar energy of this mirror can also heat the hot oil tank of the general system. Other elements of the solar kitchen are simple pa-rabolic-mirror solar cookers , several solar cooking boxes and a solar dryer. The kitchen teams who will be working here will experiment with diffe-rent solar possibilities and find out for themselves which technologies are suitable for their purposes.

Testfield 1

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As a supplement for the winter days short of sun radiation we are currently (2010) building a biogas plant. The gas produced can be used directly for cooking or for heating the oil.

The Testfield also includes an ecology test-field. Different elements of Sepp Holzer‘s permaculture are tested and demonstrated here: gardens close to the house, healing plants and above all urban ecology for backyards in the cities for “citizens of the Earth without earth” (www.krameterhof.at). The integration of the Testfield into the developing

water landscape is part of phase 2 of the construc-tion.

Martin Pietsch has developed a generous mem-brane construction for the shaded village square. Through the interaction of the membrane const-ruction with the ecological design, various large and small social meeting places develop and an approach to semi-permeable architecture is ex-perienced; living spaces and nature are brought closer together.

“Optimal self-sufficency is not only an ecological, but also an ethical nessecity.”

Dieter Duhm

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The following steps will be completed by the end of 2012:The existing Testfield will be completed and its individual modules will be further developed: the micro biogas plant will be integrated, the first house-in-house experiments will be installed in the greenhouse, and innovative shade systems will be introduced thanks to our contacts with resear-chers in the area of greenhouse architecture (see pictures below for some possibilities); the question of energy storage will be refined, and much more. As soon as individual elements like the “SunPulse-Water” are ready to be operated continuously they will be used all over Tamera – in this case pumping water into the planned ring-duct for a new drin-king and irrigation water supply.

In the area of ecology more extensive changes are foreseen: The water retention space in front of the greenhouse will be extended and connected to the existing water landscape. Nearby in a higher, gentle valley, opening to the south, another parti-cularly beautiful retention space will be created.

The next Step: Construction Phase 2 of the Testfield

The grounds for the “citizens of the Earth without earth” in Testfield 1 will be further developed. These are demonstration areas that show how to supply oneself with fruits and vegetables in an ur-ban situation, in slums or even on rubbish tips, for example with a tube filled with compost and orga-nic waste that can be wound around a pillar and used to grow plants just like in a normal garden.

We urgently need to extend our workshop and add laboratories, where results will be recorded, ongoing tests observed and further experiments prepared. Testfield 1 will be maintained and ex-panded from here, for example the greenhouse will get a chimney. A chimney added to the green-house causes air circulation, the warm air rises in the chimney, flows along condensers, humidity condenses and the recovered water can be treated and reused. In this way the water consumption for plant cultivation can be minimised.

Elements of the future technology will be built in on a laboratory scale in the developing technology park – of course, always connected to the concept

SolaRoof

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of cooperation with life: insights into solar che-mistry, optimised combustion of moist biomass by supplying oxygen (research by Horst Wagner), and also basic research in resonance technology, the effect of fields on the growth of plants and animals and the study of vortex processes.

An appropriate team will be put together for the research in technology, ecology and architecture. The main research questions concern the issues of energy, water and food supply. Today these are all highly explosive issues in the world.

Simultaneously the cooperation with universities will strengthen, students will be able to work on interesting theses – the research is to be scientifi-cally documented and published.

The development of the research site and the preparation of this ecological and social expe-riment requires the establishment of a project group that completely focuses its attention on the-se issues in the coming years. The group will tap existing knowledge around the world, cooperate in an interdisciplinary way and deal with the tasks in question with creativity and staying power.

The cooperation with Sepp Holzer and Jürgen Kleinwächter will continue and deepen. With their commitment for a humane world and their glo-bally unique knowledge and involvement, both researchers are invaluable friends and knowledge partners for our team.

The housing infrastructure will be prepared: We plan a housing infrastructure that supports community processes, makes it easier to integrate children and to cooperate with our animal relati-

ves in a good way - niches for bats and also rats are characteristics of an architecture based on contact instead of discrimination (see “The Sacred Matrix” by Dieter Duhm; page 260).

Externally we want to work on three essential are-as and materialize them in a model or test version: What does a future energy system look like that is no longer based on exploitation and power mo-nopolies but on decentralized, appropriate energy supply?

What do solutions for water management look like – the basis for any kind of life?

What do food biotopes and edible landscapes look like that supply enough healthy food for all inhabitants?

Internally we will work on social questions: What are social forms of cohabitation that are based on trust? Communities in which the basic values of truth, mutual support and responsible participati-on in the world are lived, rather than ideological values, are part of the answer.

Energy Power Greenhouse

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The development of the research, the imple-mentation of Construction Phase 2 and the test phase afterwards offer a lively and realistic frame for the education of many people - people who very concretely face the question of how to create a material basis of life in the jungle, the desert and also here in the Alentejo, an area threatened by desertification and urbanization. Thus Tamera´s cooperation partners from all over the world and Portuguese students will spend repeated training periods here.

The Global Campus aims to collect knowledge and experience and to find out how a world can be created in which we will live in true peace, in truth and trust and in compassion for all beings of this Earth. The Global Campus is a network of peace villages that offers specialized and techni-cal knowledge of essential importance for peace initiatives all over the world.

The peace community San José de Apartadó, one of the cooperation partners, describes the situation: “We asked the people of the peace com-munity about their greatest wish. The answer was that they wish for their children to have a better life, that they have an education and a profession. In the current political situation the fulfilment of this absolutely understandable wish would mean the end of the peace village, because the youth would have to leave for their education and would have to integrate into a system that fights the va-lues and the existence of the peace village.” Back then the leaders decided to found a “Universidad de la Resistencia” to be able to offer their youth

an education that gives them the knowledge they need to build their peace village and to sustain their independence, dignity and freedom.

The Global Campus aims to be able to offer this knowledge to people who need it. The surroun-dings, the expertise of the growing team and Tamera‘s research make Testfield 1 a training site for the Global Campus. Through participation, un-derstanding the specific projects and being with people in comparable situations from all over the world, a feeling of being part of a new planetary family arises (see p. 27, construction of a biogas plant). However, it is also important to realize that we need to study and practice how to create and maintain peace-supporting structures sustainably.

Creating ModelsThe content of the Global Campus training con-cerns the creation of decentralized alternatives or “models”.

The future relevance lies in the connection of knowledge that so far has been taught and also applied separately – and in the connection of this knowledge with a solid social basis of solidarity. This knowledge is about the creation of models for a new way of living – for the creation of models aiming to create comprehensive living forms free of violence. We believe that a future without war is possible for the whole of humanity if we use the social, spiritual and technical possibilities that are accessible today.

Solar Organ, Energy Power Greenhouse

The Idea of the Global Campus

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The Further Vision and the TTT-PlatformWe plan an additional model settlement in the “wing area” of Tamera in which all the knowledge from the Testfield will be applied. Here all know-ledge will be used from day one – we are still compromising in the current Testfield , for examp-le with the existing energy supply system, with existing housing structures, and with the existing water and sewage system. From the beginning, the SolarVillage will be a planned model village in which we are going to manifest the knowledge at the highest level possible. The heart of the pl-anned settlement will be an education site, with the working title “TTT-Platform” (technology, trai-ning and transfer). We want to bring together the

Paul Gisler (Technical Coordinator SolarVillage), 2009

knowledge of guiding intellectual forces of many disciplines – above all of research pioneers that are not heard or are even suppressed elsewhere. The TTT-Platform is the breeding ground for a “free lab” in which concepts for the future are conceived, for example in vortex research, light storage, the effect of fields on plants and much more.Here the goal of all research is also the construction of self-sufficient, decentralized settlements that can be adapted to all climate zones of the world. We will demonstrate that the creation of small eco-logical circulatory systems is not a retrograde step, but on the contrary a step towards stable, humane structures that will still be relevant in the future.

Planned SolarVillage

Testfield 1

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The TTT-Platform (Technology, Training, Transfer) I dreamt of 20 years ago when I was thinking about the platform that would transfer solar technologies to the crisis areas of our planet, is gradually going to develop from the Testfield.

These technologies only make sense once they ease the daily lives of people, i.e. when they reliably supply people with clean drinking water and food, and with energy for a variety of appliances and machines. As people in crisis areas are increasingly being neglected by the wealthy part of humankind they do not profit from the latter‘s money cycles and cannot afford “normal”, commercially available solar technologies. This is why it is so important to develop solar systems which can be produced by the people in need, with relatively simple mecha-nical means and locally available materials.

The successful inauguration of Step I of the Test-field in Tamera in autumn 2009 was a milestone on the way towards the TTT-Platform. Besides the

Jürgen Kleinwächter: Future Possibilities for Testfield 1

fact that we had developed and supplied the basic technology this achievement was mainly enabled by the fact that the right people came together in Tamera, with its semi-arid, almost African climate, to put together the individual parts of a puzzle and build a functioning whole. What stands out, besi-des the skills and the enthusiasm for an anything but easy task like this one, is the inspiring joy of life with which the actors work on the integration of the technologies into the social structures of daily life.

If the experimental workshop is now expanded in a second phase, if the team is professionally strengthened and the integration of groups from developing countries is intensified – wonderful future possibilities will result. To begin with, the existing elements of the Solar Power Village will be adjusted and simplified in cooperation with its fu-ture users and a small-scale serial production will be moved to the Testfield workshop. This will open

Jürgen Kleinwächter

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up the possibility of triggering external projects, at first in selected southern pilot projects as well as in Tamera‘s immediate surroundings, in the Alentejo villages with their lack of infrastructure.

In this context the close cooperation of the So-larVillage team with visitors from poorer countries will lead to a “Free Lab”, in whose framework ideas for improvement, new concepts and networking will arise. Typically, ecology and technology will come together ever more closely, as technologies become more and more “bionic”.

Arts and technology will mutually benefit each other. Improved but simple optics, for example, will enable the operation of kilns in which high quality ceramics can be fired. Adding novel storage technologies (like solar O2 as per Horst Wagner) will turn these kilns into small factories where me-tallurgy, glass melts and many other items, which are presently exclusively produced by big industry, will be produced locally.

We will study and work with light, water, fluid me-chanics, and “tricks” observed in and copied from nature. The “work process” will thereby become part of our passion; free, creative action will bring about fulfilment and simultaneously serve the supply of the disadvantaged of this planet with food, energy, dignity and quality of life through self-sufficiency.

Once we have fully understood the enormity of the gift of sunlight photons and developed the diverse technologies for building local autonomies in our “Free Lab” on this basis, a new level in the evolution of human societies will become possible. The basic rights for each newborn citizen of Planet Earth will include the right to free food, energy and free, individual development – life long!

Tibetan monks and Jürgen Kleinwächter demonstrating the Solar Organ, and with the SunPulse Electric, 2008

Jürgen Kleinwächter

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“Southern Portugal has the longest sunshine duration in Europe. At the same time the country is the second most oil-dependent in the European Union. This drastic cont-radiction exists globally: the apparent scarcity of energy is the result of a power-oriented energy economy which

condones contamination of the oceans and the fighting of wars over oil.

But the scarcity is an illusion. There is no scarcity of energy, but rather scarcity of human freedom and imagination to

perceive the abundance.”

from “Tamera - A Model for the Future”, Leila Dregger

Students of the Global Campus from Brazil on the Construction Site of the Biogas Plant, 2010

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Upper Floor

Ground Floor

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Sketches for the Expansion

of the Workshop

Workshop Ground Floor - car & bicycle 79 m2

- electronics 38 m2

- wood 142 m2

- plumbing 52 m2

- metal 123 m2

- office and tea kitchen 92 m2

- entrance and stairs - laboratory 96 m2

- storage 34 m2

Upper Floor - terrace 123 m2

- presentation room 112 m2

The existing single-storey, 240 m2 workshop will be upgraded to a 768 m2 building including usable loft space and 123 m2 of balcony. The workshop has so far served as a resource for the construction of Tamera‘s infrastructure. It will now serve a broader function as a research and training workshop for TestField 1 and for the Global Campus.We estimate a price for the building of 750 to 1000 Euros per square meter. In addition, the basic tools and equipment are required.

Upper Floor

Ground Floor

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We have all been taught that economic deve-lopment, measured by an ever-increasing GNP, is the key to world prosperity and human well being. Hence, all possible efforts must be made to maximise GNP, which means Investing as much as possible in scientific and technological innovation, and making sure that the whole development enterprise is managed by ever larger and more ‚efficient‘ corporations that cater for an ever bigger and ‚freer‘ market.

However, this is precisely what we have been do-ing in the last 50 years, during which time develop-ment has been the overriding goal of governments throughout the world. Trillions of dollars have already been poured into development schemes by multinational development banks, bilateral aid agencies and private enterprises. Revolutionary new technologies have transformed agriculture, industry and services alike. Tariffs have been dras-tically reduced, and small companies, catering for the domestic economy, have been systematically replaced by vast transnational corporations (TNCs) catering for an ever expanding world market.

World GNP, as a result, has increased by sixfold and world trade by twelvefold. If conventional wisdom were right, then the world should have been transformed into a veritable paradise. Pover-ty, unemployment, malnutrition, homelessness, disease and environmental disruption should be but vague memories of our barbaric and underde-veloped past. Needless to say, the opposite is true. Never have these problems become more serious and more widespread. (...)

“The Case Against the Global Economy” Excerpt from: “The last word - a personal commentary”

If we are really to solve these problems, as in their hearts, most people must clearly realise, society must follow the very opposite path. Instead of see-king to create a single global economy, controlled by vast and ever less controllable transnational corporations, we should create a diversity of loose-ly linked, community-based economies, managed by much smaller companies that cater above all (though clearly not exclusively) for local or regio-nal markets. (...)

Traditional communities are well capable of living off the resources of their ecosystems in a highly sustainable manner. (...)

It is for this reason that the community is best seen - as it always has been among traditional societies - as comprising not only its human members but the ecosystem with all the living things of which it is part. Wendell Berry sees the community in just this way:

“If we speak of a healthy community, we cannot be speaking of a community that is only human. We are talking about a neighbourhood of humans in a place, plus a place itself: the soil, the water, its air and all the families and tribes of the non-human creatures that belong to it.”

What is more, it is only if this whole community is healthy “that its members can remain healthy and be healthy in body and mind and in a sustainable manner”.

by Edward Goldsmith

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“We have to build seed kernels of a new development. Seeds which are so ready to sprout that they lead to the

creation of a global field.”Dieter Duhm

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When we talk about subsistence economy we talk about a certain form of autonomy. A commu-nity or an example model settlement does not produce everything it needs from its own resour-ces (the definition of autonomy). A community is always an open system and it always connects with its neighbours. Therefore a growing interaction of mutual support creates a relatively self-sufficient region. Even then, this region is not closed in itself but it interacts with its respective neighbouring regions. This can be compared to a forest system: a forest unit is productive in itself and at its borders it is deeply connected and interlocked with the surrounding systems.

In such way an overall system of individual re-gions develops – like closely connected organs in a bigger, connected whole. Eventually a global

What is a Subsistence Economy?

communication system working in complete mu-tual support is created. In addition to this, such a system is open to the influence of even more comprehensive systems – the sun, the stars, the universe, the mental-spiritual forces, and the field forces of humankind.

In the same manner as natural biotopes are desi-gned and cooperating with each other (especially in the border areas, the cooperation between two biotopes is very diverse and creative), future sett-lements will consist of such regional, self-sufficient and still globally interconnected units.

The concept of contact is decisive: contact with the rhythms of the greater systems, contact and cooperation with the earth, cooperation and sup-port in the area of human interaction.

“Real autonomy means to be able to ignore every single claim of pow-

er coming from outside.” Anon.

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The “new world order” aimed at by globalisation with the cash-less traffic of goods and electronic identity badges, with so-called “free-trade zones” and the extermination of all domestic subsistence economies etc. an increasing part of the earth’s po-pulation (indigenous, poor, unemployed, landless, sick, oppositions, freedom fighters, truth seekers, autonomous thinkers and unpopular inventors) is excluded from the supply of goods. Moreover, the general purchasing power will decline due to unemployment leading to part of the production becoming senseless while unemployment, in turn, increases again. In this way, a special kind of global vacuum emerges as the part of the earth’s population that drops out of the economic system will need a new possibility of living. Here also, the Healing Biotopes could present a possibility for solutions. What is to be built are new community organisms independent of banks, multinationals or states with a mostly autonomous supply in all vital areas. It is, in a certain way, a “return” to local economy systems that are based on community but in connection with new technologies and so-cial structures, including a new relation between the genders.

How can local groups arrive to a global effect? How can the conditions of a structural peace which are created at a few places have an effect on the whole earth?

The answer results from the specifics of holistic (all-encompassing) systems. Together with all life on earth, humankind builds a holistic system. The whole works in every detail – and vice versa: what ever happens in a part has an effect on the whole. This effect can be minimal but increases with the significance that the local change has for the whole. In the case of a high significance, a process develops in the whole that can be described by the terms of “resonance”, “iteration” and “morpho-genetic field building”. This is the decisive process for the globalisation of peace (I described it in more detail in my book “The Sacred Matrix”). When a piece of information that is sufficiently complex, sufficiently important and sufficiently compatible with the whole is entered into an organism this information has an effect in all cells. When a piece of information is entered into the informational body of the earth, that is important for a violent-free co-habitation of

all creatures, the mental/spiritual layer of the earth (noosphere) enters into a “stimulated state”; the entered information works latently in all creatures. If the information is entered by means of existing Healing Biotopes a global field of probability for the emergence of similar life forms emerges on many places of the earth. What is decisive for the success of such peace projects is not how big and strong they are (compared to the existing apparatuses of violence), but how comprehensive and com-plex they are, how many elements of life they combine and unite in themselves in a positive way. In the field buildings of evolution it is not the “law of the strongest”, but the “success of the more comprehensive”. Otherwise no new deve-lopment would have been able to impose itself for they all begun “small and inconspicuous” (Teilhard de Chardin).

In this context we can formulate the central research question of the Healing Biotopes as follows: Which social, ecological, economic, spiritual preconditions should be realised in a way that – on the basis of the current state of our evolution – the general in-formation necessary for planetary healing work can emerge?

The main problem does not lie in the question of whether the centres can be globally effective but whether we are able to really create them. As they are a part of the whole the burden of the whole also depends on them. They can only be successful if they reach that “universal ground” they share with the whole. That universal ground is the invulnerable basis of all human beings, their common source and dowry, their divine core. It shows itself in the capacity for truth, for love and for the acceptance of the high-er orders of life. Communities begin to be globally effective once they have found in the tapestry of hu-mankind the very dimension in which all inhabitants of the earth are connected with one another. On this basis, fragments of life that had been separate for so long converge and unite: man and woman, human and human, sexuality and mind/spirit, Eros and Aga-pe, human and nature, human and God. Here, the indispensable spiritual dimension of future healing work becomes apparent. Healing is the return from being banned, it is the negation of the original pain that consisted in the separation.Further Reading: Dieter Duhm, The Sacred Matrix, page 320 ff, Political Theory

A message from Tamera “Is Peace possible?” - Excerpt from the Project Declaration 1

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The construction of a biogas plant in Testfield 1 started in April 2010. The first three months were dedicated to the education of students of the Global Campus. Under the supervision of Michael Stang and Martin Funk, students from all over the world, amongst them representatives of the peace community San José de Apartadó in Colombia, re-presentatives from the “Favela de Paz” in Brazil and Philip Munyasia from Kenya could get to know the principle of such a plant. The knowledge gained is meant to pave the way for them to build adapted biogas plants in their homes as a contribution to creating their own energy self-sufficiency.

Including a biogas plant into the Testfield im-proves the situation primarily in the winter time when the sun‘s radiation is not so strong. The kitchen can be run with biogas during the rainy winter season when the direct solar energy is often insufficient. The gas can be transformed into ther-mal energy or into mechanical energy or electricity (via the SunPulse Electric) because it can be stored easily.

The goal is to manifest a plant as a low-tech and open-source solution that can be built in simple workshops. Unskilled workers in poorer countries can also understand and reproduce this techno-logy and therefore establish their own energy self-sufficiency. The plant recycles only the various biomass leftovers that are produced throughout the year: kitchen waste, brushwood, horse manure and human faeces from the directly connected to-ilets. Contrary to large state-of-the-art plants, this plant does not need high-energy biomass such

Construction of an Experimental Biogas Plant

as corn or grain from large monocultures, which require costly fertilizers and compete with food production.

With this project, a proven building technique from Nepal and China is adapted to European con-ditions and built here for the first time. Some extra elements are added, above all for the temperature control. The heat is regulated through solar panels or a ‘Biomeiler’ thermal power source. Heating tubes and thermostatic sensors precisely control the temperature in the fermentation container. A manual agitator, not used in the Nepalese version, is also built into the fermentation container as an improvement to avoid floating layers.

We also want to test the direct utilization of the fermented, watery mass as fertilizer and irrigation for fruit trees. We want to use the plant to experi-ment with the fermentation of different materials that are commonly regarded as unsuitable, such as brushwood, of which we have a lot in Tamera.

The plant is now structurally complete (Novem-ber 2010) and soon ready for the first filling. Then we can begin experimenting how to stock the plant for optimal gas production.

SunPulse Electric, 2010

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The Stirling Engine

The Stirling engine was invented in 1816 by the Scottish Reverend Robert Stirling, about 50 years after the invention of the steam engine. Mainly driven by ethical considerations, he developed this alternative for use in coal pits and stone quarries. The steam engines that were used to pump water in these areas often exploded and many children working in the pits were injured. The first Stirling engine worked as a water pump to drain a stone quarry in Scotland. The Stirling engine saw a first boom at the end of the 19th Century as a decen-tralized energy source for the private houses of the rapidly growing middle class, and was then, however, almost completely replaced by the rise of Otto, Diesel and electric engines. Since the mid-1970s, the Stirling engine is regaining acceptance, mainly in the context of solar power stations and small co-generation units.

What is a Stirling Engine? Stirling engines are nearly ideal thermal engines, meaning that they convert thermal energy very

efficiently into mechanical energy. Based on its thermodynamic principle the Stirling engine has a higher conversion efficiency than the steam engine or the Otto or Diesel engines. The Stirling engine doesn‘t depend on burning fossil fuel inter-nally like the Otto or Diesel motors. As the heat is provided externally, it can work with nearly every heat source, in the ideal case with biomass and/or the radiation of the sun.

How does a Stirling Engine Work? The Stirling engine is driven by the temperature fluctuation of its working gas (typically air) which is caused by the source of heat and cooling. The air repeatedly expands when heated and contracts when cooled. Robert Stirling, who created this en-gine, found a superb solution to create the change between hot and cold. His idea was to create separated temperature zones: a permanently hot and a permanently cold zone within the engine. A displacer piston is used to periodically shift the air back and forth between the hot and cold zones

Piston and Flywheel of the SunPulse Water

First Stirling Engine, 1816 SunPulse Electric, version of 2004

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where it can expand and contract. A connected power piston is moved when the air expands in the hot zone and consequently provides mecha-nical energy as the pressure rises.

The Stirling Research of Jürgen Kleinwächter In 1971, father Hans and son Jürgen Kleinwächter extended their private research institute KLERA (Kleinwächter Research & Development for Space and Nuclear Technology) increasingly into the growing field of solar energy. Until this time, Hans Kleinwächter had developed many technologies such as novel microwave antennas, shock wave reflectors for the destruction of kidney stones, rocket guidance systems and the most advanced anthropomorphic robot syntelman (Synchronous telemanipulators). Most of these genius inventions were used in the arms and nuclear industries and therefore father and son made the ethical decision to subsequently bring their scientific knowledge only into the service of the solar future. Beside many other research areas (e.g. the first German solar car 1978) they concentrated mainly on the development of thermodynamic and especially Stirling engines and light weight concentrator optics — in which sunlight is concentrated with

the help of thin metallised, pneumatically defor-med foil concentrators, or more simply: reflective plastic sheets curved with air pressure. These are the two key components to realize their basic idea: to combine relatively simple modules into a super lightweight and economic solar power station.

In the year 1980 they founded the Bomin Solar lnstitute. The subsequent intensive research on Stirling engines resulted in the innovative system of a magnetically-coupled high temperature Stir-ling engine, allowing for a hermetical seal so that Helium could be used as a working gas. Already in the early Eighties they created a light weight solar power station SKK (Solar Kuppel Kraftwerk) on their testfield in Lörrach. This consisted of a 10m foil paraboloid coupled with a 10 kW free-piston Stirling, protected under a 17m high transparent dome.

In the 90‘s Jürgen Kleinwächter and his team continued working after Hans Kleinwächter’s death. They concentrated increasingly on the development of low and medium temperature Stirling Engines (from 100 to 500°C). The target is to develop a simple technology, independent of

Simon du Vinage

Solar Power Station SKK, Lörrach 1981 Sunray with Fresnel Lenses, 2009

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large production facilities for decentralized energy production for the benefit of large populations.

The high pressures and temperatures of classical Stirling engines require expensive special mate-rials and high precision and are therefore very expensive. In comparison, a simplified technology for low and medium temperatures should result in efficiencies comparable to high temperature engines, however with greatly simplified and more economical materials and much lower mechanical tolerances. The reduction of temperatures, pressu-res and frequencies enable the use of novel geo-metries and materials for both the engines and the optical concentrators. The Croatian Professor Ivo Kolin and the Nuremberg-based inventor Eckart Weber inspire the Kleinwächter team with theore-tical bases and models of low temperature Stirling engines.

A completely novel Stirling technology is born, working with relatively low temperatures, high efficiencies and simple heat storage solutions for around-the-clock operation of the Stirling engine. This technology offers an answer to the enormous worldwide requirement for small power engines in

the range from approximately 100 Watt to 2 Kilo-watts. Consequently two models have been deve-loped and are continually improved, the “SunPulse Water” and the “SunPulse Electric” .

The SunPulse Water is a water pump which directly converts the energy of the incoming solar radi-ation into hydraulic energy and therefore offers ideal conditions for decentralized application. The enormous potential of such simple, efficient and directly driven solar pumps becomes most evident when considering the situation in India: About 50% (!) of the total electrical energy generated is used to drive water pumps in rural areas. Since the population in these areas is poor and cannot afford the normal price of electricity, the central government is heavily subsidizing this electricity. Therefore SunPulse Water engines offer the Indian economy a huge opportunity. As they can be pro-duced locally with simple tools and materials this solution has the potential to create stable employ-ment and drastic environmental improvements in these areas.

The SunPulse Electric is driven by two fluid circuits; hot oil on the hot side and water on the cold side. It

Jürgen Kleinwächter

Cross-section of the SunPulse ElectricSunPulse Electric is installed in Testfield 1

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directly drives such mechanical systems as cooling compressors, grain mills, saws and many other useful mechanical systems; also electrical genera-tors to produce electricity. The hot oil is heated by concentrated solar radiation and is used directly as both heat transportation and storage medium. Thus the SunPulse Electric acts as a solar power station able to provide several kilowatts of energy around-the-clock.

The direct conversion of heat to mechanical energy without the use of electric generators and motors is a most elegant and economic way to produce decentralized power. When an environ-ment-neutral biomass/biogas burner is added to the system, continuous operation can also be maintained during sun-poor seasons.

Jürgen Kleinwächter and his team are continuing to optimize Stirling engines. One of the key ele-ments is to develop optimal fluid dynamic confi-gurations to enable efficient and extremely low cost heat exchangers – a key challenge for Stirling

engines. To extend the power output of the Sun-Pulse Electric engine to the 10kW power range, a modified, extremely compact medium tempera-ture Stirling engine – the “Y-engine” is currently under development.

In Tamera, two SunPulse Stirling engines are cur-rently operating on the solar Testfield.

1. The SunPulse Water 300, with an integrated solar collector and hydraulic bellows pump with 300 Watt power (pumping 1 litre water per second about 30m high).

2. The SunPulse Electric 1500, delivering 1500 Watt electricity with a hot oil system in the neighbou-ring energy-power greenhouse, with oil/gravel heat storage tank.

Visitors in the Testfield 1, 2009

SunPulse Water, 2010 SunPulse Electric, 2010

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Construction of a Scheffler Mirror

A Scheffler Mirror is a solar reflector with a fixed focus, meaning that it is designed to track the sun in such a way that the burning point remains fixed and does not wander during the day. The inventor of this technology, Wolfgang Scheffler, developed a tracking mechanism similar to a mechanical clock. The mirror adjusts automatically to follow the course of the sun with the help of a techno-logy which is built from parts of bicycles. Thus a solar oven, for example, can run throught the day without needing any manual adjustment. This technology has also been adopted and is being taught by the Barefoot College in Tilonia, India, one of the Global Campus cooperation partners (www.barefootcollege.org).Through the fixed focus of the Scheffler Mirror, the construction of solar kitchens is possible, since the mirror supplies continued concentrated light energy.

Where are Scheffel Mirrors useful?For the past 20 years the mirrors have been used in many Southern countries. The construction plans are open source (not patented but freely ac-cessible). The Barefoot College for instance, holds regular courses to enable village women to create their own independent and environment-friendly source of energy.The basic idea which led to the development of the Scheffler Mirror was the desire to make solar cooking as comfortable as possible. At the same time the apparatus should be such that - after a given period of instruction – it ought to be pos-sible for it to be produced with locally available materials at any rural welding workshop. Since the construction of a Scheffler Reflector does not have to rely on building parts from large industries, it constitutes a step towards independence. In India, the energy for large kitchens in some of the Ashrams is produced with Scheffler Mirrors.

A seminar on the construction of a Scheffler mirror took place in 2008 under the guidance of Alec Gagneux, in cooperation with the SolarVillage team, Monte Cerro students and invited experts.

Scheffler Mirror in Tamera, 2008

The Scheffler mirror’s cooker

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The largest such installation provides meals for up to 18,000 people.

Instead of a cooking stove it is also possible to di-rect the burning focus to a baking oven, a steamer or heat storage.

How effective is this technology?The output of a reflector with a surface of 10 m2

varies depending on the season of the year (i.e. high or low sun level) from between 2.2 kW during summer and 3.3 kW during winter with a solar in-put of 700 Watt per m2.

How does Tamera want to use the Scheffler Mirror?With a surface of 10 m2 the mirror itself is an im-pressive sight apart from being a “shining” examp-le – in the true sense of the word – for a technology usually associated with third world development to be part of energy solutions in European coun-tries.

The mirror will also be used in conjunction with the SunPulse Electric low temperature Stirling engine in the SolarVillage. The mirror can be used to heat oil during the day, which is stored and used to drive the SunPulse to provide power day and night. This extends the ideas for autonomous energy production by one more module.

Scheffler Mirror on the Campus, 2008

Second reflector in the cooking boxScheffler Mirror in Testfield 1, 2010

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For financial support:

Portugal:Account holder: Associação para um Mundo Humanitário Bank: Caixa Crédito Agrícola S. Teotónio NIB: 0045 6332 4021 9980 8662 0 IBAN: PT50 0045 6332 4021 9980 8662 0 BIC: CCCMPTPL

Germany:Account holder: Karl-Rainer Ehrenpreis - Forschungsgemeinschaft Tamera Bank: GLS Gemeinschaftsbank Bochum Account-No.: 400 635 2400, Bank Code (BLZ): 430 609 67 IBAN: DE02 4306 0967 4006 3524 00, BIC: GENODEM1GLS

Switzerland: Account holder: Stiftung FGB, Verein Netzwerk - Tamera Bank: Freie Gemeinschaftsbank, Basel Account-No.: 400.631.3, Clearing-No.: 8392, Postcheque Basel: 40-963-0 IBAN: CH20 0839 2000 0040 0631 3, BIC: RAIFCH22XXX Tax deductible receipts are available for donations made to this account in Switzerland .

USA:Through the IHC (International Humanities Center), a non-profit organisation with 501 [c], you can get a donation invoice for the USA. Cheques: please send them directly to: IHC - International Humanities Center, PO Box 923, Malibu, CA 90265, USA. As reason for payment, please write: IHC/IGF Credit cards: please call: +1-310-579.2069; Fax: + 1-206-333.1797, Steve Sugarman: steve@ihcenter.org

Thank you for your supportSolarVillage project group

For further information:

www.tamera.orgsolarvillage.tamera.org

Tamera, Monte do Cerro, 7630-392 Reliquias, PortugalTel. Office Tamera: +351 / 283 635 306

Tel. Office SolarVillage: +351 / 283 635 313 Fax.: +351 / 283 635 316

Your contact person: Barbara Kovatssolarvillage@tamera.org