Adrian Ramsay
From a young age, Adrian Ramsay started building an impressive political career. At 16, he joined the Green Party, which he felt tackled environmental issues with strong and coherent policies. As the former Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales and former Norwich City Councillor for Nelson Ward, Adrian continued to build his political career to position himself as a key figure in making changes to environmental policies.
Today, Adrian is the Chief Executive of the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales, an education and visitor centre demonstrating practical solutions for sustainability. CAT covers all aspects of green living and engages visitors and students with a valuable demonstration centre, a living laboratory with live examples of sustainable solutions, and has the largest range of installed renewable systems anywhere including photovoltaics, solar thermal, a micro-grid, off-grid and grid connected systems, a range of small to medium wind turbines and extensive organic gardens.
We were thrilled to speak with Adrian about his work with CAT and his view on the future of renewables.
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The Beam: What is the Centre for Alternative Technology and what are its missions?
Adrian Ramsay: The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) is an environmental education and research centre, based in Wales in the UK.
Our mission is to inspire, inform and enable people in practical solutions for sustainable living. We do this through a range of different activities, including a visitor centre open to the public, school visits and outreach work, postgraduate courses and vocational training, and a free information service for people who want to make changes in their own homes and communities.
We cover a wide variety of sustainability issues, from renewable energy and green building to woodland management and organic growing. Our Zero Carbon Britain project looks at ways of getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions using technology available today.
As a “practical demonstration centre” and “living laboratory”, do you have examples of projects you develop at the Centre for Alternative Technology?
At the moment, we’re introducing some new displays and training areas in biomass heating. This will help us to train biomass installers, and will be used as an experimental area for students on our MSc programmes. By providing working examples of technologies for students to learn from, we can make sure that we’re providing them with the real-world skills they need to get started in a career in the renewable industry.
Another example of the ‘living laboratory’ principle is our use of experimental materials and methods in our green buildings. For instance, we have students working on MSc projects and PhD theses using data from our buildings — including studies into hemp and binder insulation, rammed earth, strawbale buildings, solar thermal, biomass, and more.
What does a typical day look like at the Centre for Alternative Technology?
I’m not sure we have such a thing as a typical day! During the school holidays, when our visitor centre is at its busiest, you might see children learning about renewable energy by building solar-powered boats and watching them speed across our ponds. When our postgraduate students are here, you’ll hear snippets of animated conversation about solutions to climate change, or you’ll see them setting up experiments in solar tracking or building innovative structures as they learn about sustainable materials and methods. There might be a school group staying in our self-contained Eco Cabins, exploring environmental issues in an immersive learning environment. We also hire out our venue for events — so last weekend a couple got married at CAT. No two days are the same.
How do you assist people who come to you with a sustainability project?
A lot of people come to us initially through our free information service, through which we provide general advice on sustainability issues. If people want more detailed information, they can engage one of our consultants or join a short course if they want to learn the skills to manage the project themselves — for example, we run short courses in different types of renewable energy and in practical building skills. They can also stay in touch with us by becoming a member of CAT, which allows them to receive tips and information through our magazine and newsletters.
According to you, why is it important to develop renewable energy and is there an “emergency” about the situation of sustainable development?
Climate change makes it not just important but essential that we get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of this century. We simply cannot keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and expect life to continue as normal. We are already seeing the effects of the global temperature rise — in the UK we’ve experienced increasingly extreme weather patterns, with record rainfall causing flooding up and down the country. Around the world, food supplies are being disrupted, homes are being ruined and lives are already being lost because of our changing climate. If emissions continue on their current trajectory, things will get much, much worse.
So we need to find workable solutions. We need to ‘power down’ our energy use, and we do this by retrofitting our housing stock to make homes and businesses more energy efficient, by transforming our food systems to reduce emissions from agriculture, and by changing the way we travel, including a significant reduction in aviation. At the same time, we need to ‘power up’ our clean energy supplies, investing in the technologies that will help us get to zero. In the UK, we have a great wind resource, and could meet this reduced energy demand through a combination of off-shore and on-shore wind, solar energy, hydro-power and UK-sourced biomass.
CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future report explores a scenario that would result in net zero greenhouse gas emissions, using only technology available today — it’s a scenario that ensures that the lights stay on and that we don’t have to sacrifice too many of our comforts. Similar scenarios have been developed for countries all over the world, and we’ve brought all of these together in our Who’s Getting Ready for Zero? report to show that we already have the technology to create a climate safe future.
What are the main challenges that society has faced since you have worked in the field and are there issues to fight in the future?
The latest phase in CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research project looks at the social, economic and political barriers to getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, and explores how we can overcome these. There are clearly many challenges to be met, but the problem is far from insurmountable — our research has shown that it’s possible to get there using technology available today, but what is lacking is the political will.
In the UK, the current government is systematically dismantling support for renewable energy, particularly on-shore wind. At the same time, they’re encouraging fracking and new nuclear. It’s definitely a challenging policy environment for the renewable energy industry. Germany seems to be streets ahead of the UK in this area.
How much faith can we place in renewables today? Are there unreasonable expectations on the future of renewable energy?
I think it can be dangerous to portray renewable energy as a ‘magic bullet’ for climate change. It’s a very important part of the solution, but it’s far from the only part. If we are to tackle climate change, we need to tackle over-consumption; we need to use less energy. I think most people who support renewables recognise this.
According to you, how could a green economy stimulate jobs and the economy overall?
There’s huge potential for lasting, skilled jobs in green industries. Whether it’s insulating homes, installing renewable energy systems, running local repair and reuse schemes or working on an integrated public transport system, the green industries we need for the future could provide millions of new jobs across Europe. The economy needs to operate within the natural limits of the planet so focusing efforts on creating work in areas which help preserve natural resources and use renewable energy is the way to create sustainable jobs.
How is the Centre for Alternative Technology financed? Do you receive any financial help from the EU?
We don’t receive any state support for our core services, although some of our projects have received funding from EU sources. Some of our income comes from course fees and visitor entry fees, but we also rely on the support of individuals — our membership programme is a great way of keeping in touch with CAT whilst also supporting our work, and we’re very grateful to all of the individuals who see the value in what we do and are keen to be involved and help support us.
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Interview by Anne-Sophie Garrigou for The Beam and http://the-beam.com/
Find more information about CAT on their website and on Gridhub.
Contact: info@cat.org.uk.
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