Renewable Energy-Gasland Documentary- California

We watched the documentary Gasland while staying at the Zlystra Dairy Farm ( the home of our Professor Tait’s friends) on the evening of June 25. The director of the documentary is Josh Fox; he went on a journey around the United States after he got a letter that a drilling company wanted to buy his small Pennsylvanian farm. The company wanted to have a natural gas well on Mr. Foxes’ current property. That means the company would have to frack in order to drill this well.

What is fracking?

"Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high oressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow freely out of well."- definition from http://gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking/

Example of natural gas well using fracking.



The wells are being drilled too close to homes and the dangerous chemicals are being leached in people’s water supply. The water changes color, it may hiss out of the tap or even more shocking catch on fire if you put a flame to it.  People who drink the contaminated water can lose hair, begin to get headaches, lose their sense of smell or taste or worse get brain lesions.



All signs point to that we need to find a new way to drill for natural gas.

Besides the damage to humans, fracking also damages the environment.  First of all, the process of fracking requires a lot of water. It takes many truck loads to bring materials to a drill site- all those trips take non-renewable energy which release carbon dioxide into air. The wells themselves are dug 11,000 to 18, 000 feet down- all that land is disturbed and like I said the water supply is usually affected.

Do you know of someone who might live close to the drilling?

Renewable Energy- Methane Digester- California

We visited a Methane Digester outside of Modesto, California on June 25. Our tour guide was one of the owners of  the farm John Fiscalini. The farm produced cheese and was home to  many a cow hence all the methane. There were two methane digesters on site; both 86 feet in diameter and 26 feet high- together they could hold 860,00 gallons of effluent.

 All the poop from the cows first flows to an effluent pit and the big pieces are separated out and dried for bedding and maybe will be used for soil started in the future. The leftover smaller solids and liquid is piped into the two digesters. Methane bubbles inside of digester and rises to the top; it is piped to a condenser and cooled and then piped to a generator behind the dairy barn. The process produces 400-500 kilowatts of electricity- these digesters started producing electricity in June 2009.

The owner, John, has gotten grants to study co-digestion. That would mean besides his own cow waste- people in the area could bring him their organic materials – stuff that would just be going to a landfill anyway; that could include grass clippings, egg shells and fruit left over from some of the cannery’s in the area.

The electricity is sold to an outside utility- so the farm has to follow numerous regulations and has to answer to the air and water boards because it does produce a significant amount of electricity.

Renewable Energy- Altamont Pass Wind Farm- California

On June 24 we stopped by and saw the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in Livermore, California.

It is the largest and one of the first wind farms in the United States. It was built during the Carter administration. The farm has 4, 930 single unit turbines ranging from small to big. It was designed with a capacity of 576 megawatts but is operating at 20% which is 125 megawatts (1 megawatt powers 200-450 homes).

  Smaller wind tubines at Altamont Pass.

                                                  

The farm is right in the middle of raptor and bald eagle migration. The farm’s location was not thought out completely- all the designers thought was that a pass would have lots of wind and should be a good place for a wind farm. Just because a place should be a good place, doesn’t mean it is the right place for a wind farm. Nowadays, a year or more of studying the wind patterns of the area needs to be done before a farm can be erected.

Renewable Energy- Nevada Solar One Project

Located in the Mojave Desert right outside Las Vegas in Boulder City, Nevada is the Nevada Solar One Project; we visited the siteon June 19. We were all a little tired and stumbled out of the van because the day before we hiked out of the Grand Canyon.

The entire facility takes up 400 acres of land. It is a solar concentrator site and consists of 180,000 parabolic mirrors. The suns rays reflect off of mirrors and heat pipes of oil. The super-heated oil then passes into water towers that then heat water and creates steam. The steam then spins turbines that produce energy. The plant produces about 64 megawatts of electricity. Compare that power output to the nine sections of mirrors at the plant located in Kramer Junction, California that produces 354 megawatts of electricity.

Parabolic troughs like the ones found at Solar One Project.

Right up the road from the Nevada Solar One Project is Spring Mountain State Park. There are over 80 springs on the mountain hence its name- it a great place to go on a hot summer day to escape the heat of the desert. We met up there with Amy, a conservation biologist, who works for the Fish and Wildlife Service. She spoke about how there are currently 3,000 different types of renewable energy proposals for the Mojave Desert and 80 will probably go through and come to fruition. Most of the proposed facilities will take up to 5,000 to 7,000 acres and that will disturb the desert tortoise habitat.

Awww, arent' desert tortoise cute?



Renewable Energy- Blundell Geothermal Plant-Utah

We took a tour of the Blundell Geothermal Plant in Milford, Utah on June 15. Geothermal refers to the heat naturally produced deep inside of the earth.  The technology for this plant comes from Israel and there are two different geothermal units at this plant. Our two tour guides were Rene Andrews, safety supervisor and Garth Larson, plant supervisor.

The first is a single-flash unit. Four wells extend a mile or so underground into a reservoir which are connected to a separator. Water in the reservoir is 500 degrees Fahrenheit and has 450 pounds per square inch. 18% of geothermal liquid or brine flashes into steam in the separator tank. The rest of the liquid, 82%, that doesn’t flash into steam is gathered at each well and pumped though pipes to an injection well that returns it to the reservoir to be heated then recycled. The steam moves turbines that power conductors that produce 23,500 kilowatts electricity.

Cooling towers of single flash unit.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

The second unit is binary system, brine from four wells heats up isopetane to create energy in a closed loop system. This unit produces 9.5 megawatts electricity. Both systems together provide electricity for 30,000 homes. 

A small view of the seconday unit at plant.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire



Check out this diagram of the two systems of the plant!

Renewable Energy-Western Resource Advocates-Colorado

On the same day, June 9th, as the visit to the National Renewable Lab we stopped at a library outside Boulder, Colorado to hear a discussion form the Western Resource Advocates. Karen Sheldon, President of Western Resource Advocates, was our speaker.

Western Resource Advocates works in eight states and has regional offices in Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona.The organization concentrates mainly on climate change. Their fuel source of primary concern is coal. They also work with water producers in the regions to ensure they use smart water practices and  the WRA teach communities about water conservation. The Western Resource Advocates also focus on land management- especially wood affected by pine borrowing beetles due to climate change. (The winters aren’t cold enough to kill off the beetles and therefore much forest in the west is affected by the beetle.)

Ms. Sheldon went into the characteristics of the West to give us a background with the area. The West is mostly owned by federal government- either wilderness areas or national parks or forests. It has a young statehood of somewhere in the 1800s compared to the 1700s for New Jersey and most of the East.

In the Upper Mountain watersheds, there is an abundance of resources coal, oil, natural gas, and water but in the lower parts of the West it is still called the Great American Desert. Having enough water in the West is an issue of concern. There is a saying that goes “Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.” The water police in Colorado are armed.  The West has always had to allocate water and they have a prior appropriation law - if you were there first then the water goes to you.

The West has managed their water with the Colorado River Compact in existence since 1922. Lees Ferry, Arizona is the dividing point between the Upper and Lower Basin States. The Upper and Lower Basin both are supposed to receive 7.5 million acre feet from the Colorado each year. 

Here is a picture of the Upper and Lower Basin states and the dividing point, Lee's Ferry. There will be a section in Water Issues in the West to further breakdown the Colorado River Compact.

Renewable Energy-National Renewable Lab- Colorado

While staying at Rocky Mountain National Park we visited the National Renewable Lab in Golden, Colorado on June 9.

Now this building looks official.

Photo Credit: David Smalley

Seventy percent of the United States energy is oil and coal. The burning of these fossil fuels is toxic to our environment. These fuels when burned release sulfuric and nitric acids into the atmosphere which leads to acid rain. The extraction of the fuels is not sustainable. The way we extract coal is strip mining- removing the tops of mountains. The process disrupts wildlife, pollutes air near homes, rivers are polluted by runoff, and the ecology of the mountain is never truly the same. Oil can be drilled on land or by sea and in the news tar sands have be discussed as well. A topic of concern is the offshore drilling. The most recent disaster surrounding offshore drilling is the BP or Deep Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico that went on for more than 100 days. The fishing industry in the Gulf will be feeling the effects of the spill for years to come.

The Lab is working with the Department of Energy, the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Defense to continue research with renewable energy options. Lesile Macmillan  was our tour guide at the National Renewable Lab-Golden Colorado. The major types of energy they are working with include wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass.

Wind:
North and South Dakota could supply forty-eight percent of our energy needs in the United States. Unfortunately, there is no grid system out there that can handle that much power. Plus private companies own the mineral and water rights where the wind turbines would be placed in these states. It would be a great feat if the Great Plains could supply the Unites States with power because the United States is basically a wind tunnel from east to west. The NREL works with small residential turbines to 2.3 megawatt Siemen’s utility size turbine with a 100 diameter. By 2030, the lab would like 20% of the nation’s energy to come from wind.

Biomass: 

This type of enrgy is from plants. By far, wood is the largest biomass fuel  but other types of biomass are being used as well. These include food crops, leftover material from agriculture and forestry, algae, and organic material from municipal and industrial wastes. The first type of biofuel that comes to mind is ethanol made from corn grains. Soo NREL hopes to use the corn stover to make fuel too that includes the stalks, leaves and husks of the corn plantThe goal in the United States is that by 2030 we will replace 50 to 60 billion gallons of imported oil each year with biomass.

Solar:
It is a race to get a photovoltaic cell that is fifty percent efficient. It is a long way away the most efficient cell today is about 15% efficient. Right now the lab has a solar concentrator that is 42% efficient.

Geothermal:
NREL is working on Low-temperature geothermal energy. It  is defined as heat obtained from the geothermal fluid in the ground at temperatures of 300°F (150°C) or less. These resources are typically used in direct-use applications - like the heating of commerial buildings- however the lab is trying to harness the low-temperature resources to generate electricity.