18.04.11 The Living Machine

I've been looking forward to see the living machine since arriving in Findhorn – a real physical symbol of working with nature to process sewage and waste. I was curious as to whether there would be a strong smell - apparently this is at its most strongest between anaerobic and aerobic – or with or without oxygen. Following this stage it converts any ammonia into nitrates collected by plant roots by pumping the system with oxygen (from my understanding anyway). It then goes through several processes until the processed water is then safe to flood into natural water flows or to be used as non-potable water. The construction costs in comparison to a standard sewage works is around 10% less, and the maintenance costs 30-40% less. It was really impressive to see the plant in progress – I can't believe that Scottish Water will no longer give permission to create another living machine due to it's threat to their monopoly. It was good to get some cold hard data from Michael regarding the renew ables – finding out how much electricity they produced and when they are actually practical to install. Giving us a task of exploring solutions to the problem of supplying the new development within Findhorn with energy – the grid is charging £47,000 to connect a new cable.

I found the afternoons talk about world economics very thought provoking. Jonathan is a very eloquent speaker and his arguments were quite compelling and quite depressing. It's difficult to argue with his ideas about an unavoidable economic crash and it's consequences. It wasn't all doom and gloom though – although an escape is highly unlikely I think our course will have an significant part to play in any resilience – investing in communities and our personal relationships will surely pay more dividends that any paper currency or precious metal.