A Wind Turbine for Christmas!

Here is the new wind turbine students and I helped set up for our Unity College colleagues Brent and Erin. The turbine head used was a new Maine-made Pika, connected as a battery-charging turbine to Brent and Erin's existing off-grid solar electrical system, where it would make up for the relatively poor sunshine Maine gets in the winter.

Maine only gets an average of 2.5 hours direct sunshine a day in winter, which is enough to charge household batteries if you have a lot of panels, but after some point adding panels is less cost-effective than adding a wind turbine because you have to add batteries as well, and batteries are expensive. We get a lot of wind in Maine in the winter. This is a particularly favorable small wind site, at an altitude of around 500 feet above sea level with very little higher ground between it and the coast. It has an average annual wind speed of approximately 4.5 to 5.5 meters per second at 50m AGL, based on our local measurements, more in winter. The couple were looking forward to being able to do their laundry any day of the week.

 

This was a beta test install for Pika, a new company we have corresponded with and helped out a little since it got going a few years ago, and we're all interested in the results. I'm particularly interested in the reliability. Pika claims up to five years without maintenance, which I think is probably an industry best for small wind turbines if it pans out.

The college donated a used six-inch, forty-meter NRG Systems anemometer tower to Brent and Erin to use as a turbine tower, in return for the right to visit the turbine and use it in training. Brent, Erin and I -- mostly Brent and Erin, with me directing via email and short site visits, during which I often was holding our newborn baby -- worked together to puzzle out how to trim it to a 100-footer, Pika sent a crew to assemble the head to our tower, then together we raised it successfully in one day.

The following day Brent and Erin adjusted the tower, turned the power on and by the end of the day were gratified by a full charge on their batteries.

This project was being planned at the end of the semester, but because of various delays involving the fabrication of the transition section from the NRG tower to Pika's turbine head, the work slopped over into our break, meaning that SEM students were not available to participate in the raising, but they did help with some of the labor of getting the tower out of storage.

This lost opportunity doesn't bother me too much because a) we have visiting rights and b) the tower will have to be lowered for maintenance in the future, and students can obviously help with that. There are a number of local turbines where we get called in to help, and we also have our small training tower on campus, so missing the original installation of this particular turbine was not such a big deal.

Why arrogant, top-down sustainability-leadership is on the way out

Excerpted from the Guardian, written by Dr Jem Bendell, professor of Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cumbria:

"Instead of a focus on heroes with great traits, to develop sustainability leadership we should enhance our understanding of how to develop leaderful groups, where senior role holders act as hosts not heroes, and enable leadership to emerge from within the group. It means insights on group facilitation, group dynamics, system change and personal mindfulness...."

The whole thing is at

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/dec/02/obsession-heroic-sustainability-leader-leave-us-disappointed

Pendulum waves

This is a nice low-key lab for the end of the semester "silly season." Relaxing.

Vehicle safety report

Yesterday afternoon, 12 students and one instructor from PS 2003 Physics, Mechanics and Energy performed safety checks and pulled trouble codes on 55 student and staff vehicles, a record for this activity.

We checked lights, fluid levels, tire wear, and tire pressure. We also "pulled" check engine light "trouble codes" using a laptop-based code-puller device, and dispensed advice as to what to do about them.

Several more dangerous safety concerns were noted that would have almost certainly related in a winter travel "fail" and possibly a stranding, or worse, an accident. They are detailed here along with further instructions to help educate college community members about vehicle safety:

• Several vehicles with disturbing low engine oil level. We added up to two quarts of oil. By the time a four-quart oil sump is down to two quarts, there's only half the oil there should be circulating to do the job of cooling and lubricating the engine. If you are losing or using oil like this, you should monitor your oil every time you add gas to the tank, and find out where the oil is going. You want to know.
• Several "customers" reporting "not worried" or "not bothered" by check engine lights being on. The problem with this theory is that the check engine light may come on one day for something fairly safe, say a small leak in the evaporative emissions system, but while the light is on, a more problematic defect can occur, and the driver never know. If your check engine light is on, you should find out what the codes mean. If you choose to ignore the defect, you then need to regularly pull check engine codes, in case an additional defect occurs while the light is already on.
• Many vehicles had tires that had only a millimeter or two of tread remaining. Several had completely bald tires. The Maine regulations require at least a millimeter all round, but this isn't nearly enough for Maine winter driving conditions, especially in a rear-wheel drive vehicle. These vehicles are extremely dangerous. These students were advised to get new all-weather or winter tires, and, until then, not to drive at all in snow storms.
• Several customers reported that they had to "try" to make it through the winter with touring tires, some of which were worn out as above. These types of tires, which are made of much harder material than all weather or winter tires to last longer, and tend to have linear tread patterns for low road noise, are only adequate for Maine winter driving after all snow is cleared from the road.
• At least three vehicles had one or more tires with dangerously low tire pressure. When your tire pressure drops below 15 pounds per square inch or so, the wheel can no longer keep straight on the road and that corner of the vehicle will wobble dangerously on corners. The best that can happen is that you wear out a tire prematurely. The worst that can happen is that you get a nasty wobble at high speed on a corner or while passing on a highway. This can lead to loss of control, and even a rollover accident. The remedy is to check your tire pressure more frequently. If the pressure in one or more tires is regularly down, you have a slow leak. Take it to a shop and get the leak fixed. This should only cost around thirty dollars, much cheaper than an accident.
• One vehicle had been driven with low tire pressure on one tire for many miles. In addition to ensuring very poor steering and handling -- the tire was in a front drive wheel -- this tire was prematurely worn out. A vehicle driven long miles with low air pressure will wear out the edge of the tire before the middle. See these pictures here.
• One vehicle with dangerously high tire pressures, above 40 psi. The correct tire pressure is not the maximum tire pressure written on the tire. It's the recommended tire pressure given in the owner's manual or written on a small sticker on the drivers-side door. Too much air in your tires can be dangerous too, just like too little air. You'll bounce more very time you hit a bump, and can bounce yourself clean off the road. You'll also wear out your tires unevenly, and have poorer traction in snow.
• Various vehicles check engine lights for oxygen sensor.

An interesting new phenomenon was that at least seven customers were not able to turn on their headlight high beams for checking. Two were not able to turn on their headlights. Automatic photo-voltaic-operated headlight switches that turn the lights on when it gets dark seem to be the source. Suburban living negates the need for high beams. However in Maine high beams are needed to avoid hitting deer and other animals. We recommend that drivers familiarize themselves with all their vehicles controls, using the owner's manual. For students that have older cars and no longer have the manual, most are now available online.

That concludes our 2014 winter vehicle safety report.

EII climate change quiz

Instructions:

Respond to the following questions (these are the same ones we've discussed in class) in paragraph form based on our classroom discussion, the video below from college President Mulkey, and the associated Town Hall meeting.

Due the last day of finals week. Was supposed to be 20% of grade but now reduced to 10%.

Questions:

1. Is there climate change?
2. What is causing climate change? Is it natural or humans or both? If humans, how did they start it? How did it become so drastic?
3. What will be the effects of climate change?
4. Should we be concerned?
5. Can climate change be stopped or slowed?
6. How can we do so? How can we reduce the human influence on climate change? Should we learn to control the planet's climate, perhaps via geoengineering?
7. What are the political and economic conditions required to slow or stop climate change? What level of emissions regulation is needed? What kind of education is required? Should we get rid of consumerism?

Ask Dr. H.

We may try this in EII.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/11/13/askdrh-presidents-science-advisor-answering-your-questions-climate-change?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=email391-text1&utm_campaign=climate

Aussies bury their heads in the sand to protest their government's climate stance

 

From the Guardian. 

The article is at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/13/g20-australians-bury-heads-in-sand-to-mock-government-climate-stance