Portsmouth High School Turbine

The turbine at Portsmouth High School is the largest turbine (1.5 MW) put up in Rhode Island; it is located in the town of Portsmouth and is located next to the high school.  The location of the turbine made it easy to connect with the power grid and is net metered to the grid.

(Net metering is where small energy providers are connected to the grid and allowed to supply excess energy they produce.  Some programs pay for the excess energy, while others provide credits on electric bills.  These small energy providers are small business and homes, mostly a single wind turbine, solar panels or other renewable energy providers.  Rhode Island has a net metering programs that allows business to be connected to the grid but only provides credits on electric bills.) 

Since the completion in March of 2009 the turbine it has produced 8,863,800 kWh, at a price of 20 dollars per kWh.

The people of Portsmouth voted on whether or not the turbine would go up, however the town only told the people what would be good about the turbine. There wasn’t any information given about the possible negative effects to the citizens that live close to the turbine.   Now that the turbine is up there are neighborhoods that are being affected by shadow flicker and the noise the turbine creates.  In some cases it has forced people to change the way they live.  I have included a video taken within on of the homes affected by shadow flicker.

Wind Power

Wind turbines generate wind power.  These wind turbines capture the stored energy in wind and convert it to electricity.  The turbines have large blade that are rotated by the wind as it passes through them.  The turning blade then powers the engine inside the turbine, which then converts the energy into electricity.  It sounds simple, however wind is not a steady resource; it changes by the time of day and year. There are also downsides associated with the turbines; they can not be located near populations of people do to shadow flicker and noise created from the blades turning and the engine humming, and they are a possible threat to wild life (this has yet to be proven).

           
Each turbine operates on what is called a power curve. This power curves is the amount of wind energy it takes to move the blades of the turbine and at what point there will be too much energy in the wind for the blades to safely rotate.  In most cases the turbines are programmed to turn off or but a brake on the blades so that will stop rotating in strong winds, so not to damage them and anything in the surrounding area.

Power Curve for 20 kW (Taiwan Wind Turbine Co.)

           
Turbines should not be located near the general population and especially not near residential areas.  The rotation of the blades cases a shadow affect known as shadow flicker. This shadow flicker gives the effect of a strobe light and in some cases it has been known to cause health problems to people that have had extended exposure.  The blades also cause a noise when the blades are on the downward section of their rotation. In addition to the blades the engines it’s self creates a sort of humming as it generates the electricity. There is hope, as the technology develops the noises created by the turbines are being lessened.

           
Wind energy is not perfect, but if it is used properly and away from people it can be a great resource to supplementing our energy needs. As the technology improves it will take less and less wind to create electricity, with the negative affects being lessen at the same time.  The future will show that wind and other renewables will rise to meet the demand for energy. 

Renewable Energy Siting Partnership

The Renewable Energy Siting Partnership (RESP) is a group of scientist, researchers, and stakeholders working together to meet the goal of “to provide technical expertise about the effects renewable energy may have on the people, wildlife and natural resources of Rhode Island.” The project is looking at all forms of renewable energy and how they can be applied in Rhode Island.  There are many people a crossed the state involved in the project and I am currently involved in the economic proportion of the RESP working on economic models.

           
The project was originally scheduled to take place between September 1^st, 2011-March 31^st, 2012, but has been extended six months, but no extra funding has been supplied.  The project was spilt into three phases; the first was Issue Identification and Assessment (September-November 2011), second was Information Synthesis and Communication (December 2011-January 2012) and third is currently going on which is Develop Final Products (February-September 2012). 

          
 Learn more Here

Biofuels in Rhode Island

Biofuels are a alterative for fossil fuels made from plants.  There are many different types ranging from ethanol made from corn and biomass (commonly agricultural waste) to biodiesel made from used vegetable oil.  Biodiesel runs the same as conventional diesel.  However, there has to be adjustments when using other forms of Biofuels and this is not the only draw back to them.

           
The major issue with biofuels is that the land that they are using to grow the vegetation necessary to produce the fuel is land that is being taken away from food production.  This is could raise food prices, making it harder for the average American family to feed it’s self. This could even lead to people in poor countries going hungry to support the gas guzzling habits of rich countries like the United States. If you were to create fuels using the waste created from the agricultural process there wouldn’t be the problem of raising food prices and there would be less waste going into landfills.  This would solve a lot of problems however, a energy efficient process of doing this is yet to be discovered and it would still not produce enough fuel for the United States.            

           
There is one process that seems promising and that is the production of biodiesel from waste vegetable oil.  This works by a company or person making deals with restaurants in their area to collect their waste oil (restaurants tend to give this oil away for free being otherwise they would have to pay to dispose of it).  Once the oil is collected it is put through a process where it is cleaned and chemically altered. You can learn more about it here.

           
Currently there is a company in Rhode Island producing and distributing biodiesel around the state.  Newport Biodiesel is a local company with over 1,000 restaurant partnerships around New England.  The provide home heating oil from many homes around the state with the help of distribution partners T.H. Malloy & sons  and Guardian Fuels. If you are interested in purchasing biodiesel, contact Newport biodiesel or one of their distribution partners. 

Energy Efficiency

With the prices of fossil fuels going up every year (with the exception of natural gas) it’s clear that something is going on.  Fossil fuels are going to run out, it’s kind of in the name isn’t it? They are made of fossils and let’s face it, making those takes some time.  Here’s the problem though, our society runs off this stuff and renewables just aren’t there yet. There’s no way we are going to supply all of our energy needs off renewables at this point. I really wish it that wasn’t the case, so what are we to do? Buy some time that’s what!

          

Image from Home Energy Efficiency Scheme

 Energy efficiency is the currency in which we’ll pay for renewable energy to catch up.  No one wants to change the way they are living right now. Who really wants to live a simpler life, have smaller cars and a darker house? No one that I know, but if you are able to do all the same things are you used to but use lease energy, why not? It saves money and helps save the earth and that’s the cool thing to do. 

           
Anyway let’s get down to how you can really make some changes to help reduce your energy consumption while still maintaining your lifestyle. There the wicked simple changes like switching out your light bulbs for energy efficient ones, driving slower, having outdoor lights on motion sensors and unplugging electronics when not in use.  Next you could replace old refrigerators for newer more energy efficient ones.  There are often rebates for buying these keep an eye out on this website (Rebates).  Thinking even bigger you could have your home insulated to reduce heating and cooling costs (for rebates and incentives ). Lastly if your not sure what you may have forgot or missed national grid offers free home energy audits (more info here)

RGGI in Rhode Island!

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Imitative (RGGI) is a cap and trade program that is designed to limit the amount of CO2 emissions released by the power sector. It works by setting at cap or limit to CO2 emissions; the cap is set by the state. Once the cap has been set the allowed amount of emissions is split up into permits that are auctioned off to the greenhouse gas emitters in the state. After the initial auction the emitters are allowed to trade permits under regulations based on the RGGI Model rule.

There are nine states involved one of them being Rhode Island. The rest are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont. The money raise by the auction of permits is then place into energy efficiency programs. In Rhode Island about 4 million dollars was placed into national grids energy efficiency programs in 2010. The programs helped more then 150,00 Rhode Islanders save more then 80 million kWh of electricity.

Find more Information at http://www.rggi.org/

Hydrofracking

Rhode Island gets most of it’s electricity from natural gas and heats 46% of it’s homes with it (More RI info). With that much of one source being used I think it would be best for the people of Rhode Island to know where it is coming from. Natural gas historically has been found with other sources of fossil fuels such as oil and oil. In recent years new technology has been discovered to increase and rediscover the amount of sources we can get this fuel from. You may have heard of it, Hydrofracking.

Credit to The Politic

Hydrofracking or Hydraulic fracturing has been making headlines in the media, for some health and environmental hazards it has caused. The new technology that has made this possible is the ability to drill horizontal to the surface. It works by drilling down into the ground into areas where natural gas is being stored in the rocks themselves. Once the holes have been drilled, a fracturing fluid mixed with sand is pumped at high pressed into the holes. This causes fractures to form alone the cannel of the hole. The fluid is then pumped out and the sand remains keeping these fractures open.

One of the major problems with this is that at the moment the gas companies to not have to report what is in this fracturing fluid. Many at many of the sights where the gas in being harvested the fluid are being dumped into large storage faculties that are little more then holes in the ground. The fluid can have any number of chemicals that are harmful to the environment and the health of surrounding communities. Right now New York State is the only state where the companies are being forced to release this information.

If the mystery fluid wasn’t enough for you, there have been some instances of natural gas leaking through the rock and getting into aquifers. This has caused problems with peoples drinking water and in some cases people have been able to literally light their water on fire. This leakage is likely cased by the fractures extending farer then the drilling companies had intended.

I know I’ve said a lot of negatives about natural gas so far but I wanted to make sure that I added that I am not opposed natural gas. In fact if I was going to use any fossil fuel natural gas is first on my list. It is clean burning compared to other fossils fuels and is plentiful in the United States. I just feel that if we are going to keep mining this resource some regulations need to be put in place to make it safer.

Just for fun I’ve added a video that’s good for a laugh.