Natural Resources- Zylstra Dairy Farm and Hilmar Cheese-California

From June 24 till June 25 we stayed at Zlystra Dairy Farm located in Modesto, California. I feel after visiting the farm it is a hybrid between an organic and commercial farm. The cows were milked by machine and identified by number but the cows were fed very well, got the best medical care when they were sick and their stalls were cleaned a few times a day so the cows were not standing in their own poop for too long. The farm has 2,000 cows total on it.

The front of the Zlystra Farm with house in backround and van in driveway.

Photo Credit: Chris Novellino

Each cow on the farm eats about 100 pounds of food each day and drinks about 1-2 bathtubs of water a day. The farm is dependent on outside feed sources which come at a high cost. They even are required by law to seek consultation from a nutritionist to make sure the cows are getting the proper nutrition- they eat such things as corn, cotton, seed and alfalfa.

In order to get milk from a cow it must be pregnant. The cow grows the baby for 7 months while getting milk and then the last two months it is dry (no milking-save the milk for the baby). The calves are sent to another facility to be raised. You do not want to be the last owner of a cow so you look at cows feed intake and milk production and if you are losing money you sell the cow for beef. The cows actually learn how to stand in the automatic milker. They are milked twice a day. The average milk a cows gives a day is 75 gallons and it can go as high as 120 gallons.

Cows at the Zlystra Farm

Photo Credit: Chris Novellino

The farm can have a negative effect on the environment in a few ways. First, the silage pile, the pile of hay that the farmer has on the property for the cows to supplement with their other feeds sources, gives off VOCs (volatile organic compounds); only a portion of the pile can be exposed at a time. Of course methane is released into the atmosphere from the cows and ammonium nitrate from cow urine is released into the groundwater.

Overall, it was interesting to see how a dairy farm works up close and personal, smell and all.

On the morning of June 25, we went for a tour of the Hilmar Cheese Company right down the road from the dairy farm. The company is the world’s largest wholesale cheese farm; it creates over 1.5 million pounds of cheese a day.

The one cool thing about this company is that it uses a recycling process with its products. The cows give milk which is curds and weigh. The curds make the cheese and the whey protein is made into whey protein and lactose. The water used to clean the plant is sent to a water reclamation facility which then can be used to water the crops that feed the cows.

Cows form the methane digester and cheese farm.

Photo Credit: Trish Seelman

Natural Resources- Uranium Mine- Moab, Utah

On our way back to our campsite after going to Canyonlands National Park near Moab, Utah on July 1 we stopped at a uranium mine. Uranium was extracted from the mine from 1962- 1984 until in it was taken over by the Department of Energy. The Department of Energy put 720 million dollars  into the building of a new rail line to move the radioactive waste to secure locations. The site is listed under RCRA to make sure the public would not have a say in what was done with the site.

Sign outside of mine.

Uranium has a half-life of 700 million years and its alpha particles are blocked by the screen .Even so it is still concerning thought because the works removing the waste at the mine do not wear protective clothing.

The mine is a concern to us on the trip because it is right next to the Colorado River. A burm was created to prevent flooding into the site but some of the radioactive material still who knows might have leached into the water.

Vocab word of the day:

Tailing- any rock material that you have extracted all the usefulness from it.

Natural Resources- Open-Pit Copper Mine- Salt Lake, Utah

While in Salt Lake City Utah on June 12 on our way to Antelope Island we stopped by the largest open pit mine in the world. It is called the Bingham Canyon Mine and is still in operation today. It was discovered in 1848 by Sanford and Thomas Bingham followers of Joseph Bingham.

The mine is a copper mine and is ¾ miles deep and 2 ½ miles long.

That means it is 3960 feet deep and 13,200 feet long.

Water in the West- Lake Tahoe- Nevada

We were unable to visit Lake Tahoe when we were in Reno, Nevada on June 28 but I will tell you a little about the Lake. Lake Tahoe is the oldest lake in Norht America being 4-5 million years old.

It is easy to see why people vacation here.

Lake Tahoe is the second deepest freshwater lake in the United States-1,685 feet deep (second to Crater Lake in Oregon). The lake is 22 miles long and 22 miles wide. It is located along the border of California and Nevada west of Carson City, NV. The lake is a major tourist attraction- home to ski resorts and of course summer recreation activites- boating, fishing, swimming, canoeing etc.

The water quality in the lake has been decreasing since the 1980s. The lake is becoming increasingly eutrophic ( having an excessive richness of nutrients).The water clarity is decreasing at an average rate of 0.25 meters a year and the priamry producation fo the lake is increasing by 5% annually. The eutrophication is mainly due to the runoff coming from homes and streets, casinos, golf courses, and septic systems and the lake has lost adjacent marshes  that would filter than runoff because of increased development.



Water in the West- Hetch Hetchy Reservoir- California

We visited the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on June 27, it is winthin Yosemite National Park. Becasue Hetch Hetcy is a municipal water supply and the water is not filterd (the Tuloumne is a protected watershed) swimming and boating are prohibited. Fishing is pemirtted formt he lake shore.

The Reservoir, harming wilderness? what! Isn't it beautiful.

Photo Credit: Eric Robinson

The reservoir holds 360,000 million acre feet of water, very small compared to Lake Powell and Mead.
The O'Shaughnessy Dam 364 feet talls form the reservoir and is gravity fed. There was a long battle against the dam, led by famous John Muir.

O'Shaunghnessy Dam.

Photo Credit: Eric Robinson

The Raker Act signed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 allowed San Francisco to buy the rights to the Tuolomne River and begin construciton of the dam that wasn't complete till 1923.  Wait when did San Francisco get invovled? The primary purpose of the dam was to supply fresh drinking water to the San Fran. Bay Area.  Hethc Hethcy holds 25 % of the cities water supply.

Hydroelectric power is also produced from the dam by the  Moccasin Powerhouse, which has a capacity of 100 megawatts. We had a tour of the Moccasin faciliy by Dr. Bruce McGurk.

San Francisco Public Utilites Comission Water System Hetch Hetchy to San Fran.

Water in the West- Federal Water Projects- California

This map nicely shows all the federal water projects in California.

There is the Central Valley Project:

Orginallly, a state project but had to become federal ( under the Bureau of  Reclamation) because in 1933 the state had no money to build such a water system during the Great Depression. The project has 13 million acre feet of storage capacity and produces 1, 880 megawats of electricity.

The CVP would transport water to the arid Central Valley of California via canals, aqueducts and pump plants- some shared with the California State Water Project. The once water-poor San Joaquin Valley is now productive farmland.

Coachella Canal:

This is a 122 mile aqueduct that take water fomr the Colorao River from the All-American Dam to the Coachella Vally in Riverside County, CA- where it is used for irrigation. Construction began in the 1930s but was interrupted by WWII and then resumed after the war and was completed in 1949. The Coachella Canal has a capacity of

39.2 million acre-feet.

All-American Canal:

This is a 80 mile aqueduct in the southeast of California. It transports water from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley and nine cities. It is the valleys only water source.

The Imperial Dam diverts water into the All-American Canal  and has made farming possible in this semi-arid place. The Imperial Irrigation discuss manages the water that runs out of the Canal and is resonsible for delivering  3.1 million acre feet of water to the valley. 



Water in the West- California State Water Project

California State Water Project:

More than 2/3 of the people in California receive part of their water from the California State Water Project. The project was built and is operated by the Department of Water Resources and was started in 1960. It was built from north to south beginning with the Oroville Dam, the tallest dam in the U.S. (770 feet tall)

Parts of the state get over 100 inches while other parts get 2 inches, and most of the growth occurs in the more arid parts of the state. Water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Colorado River is pumped to growing cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The Central State Water Project spans over 600 miles of California- it has 34 storage facilities, 20 pumping stations, four pumping-generating plants, five hydroelectric plants and approximately 700 miles of pipelines, canals and tunnels. 70% of the water is used for urban uses and the other 30% agricultural uses.

Water in the West- Central Arizona Project

The Central Arizona Project diverst 1.5 million acre feet from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu and directs in to Pima, Pinal, Maricopa counties and inclduing the Phoneix and Tuscon metropolitan areas.
The CAP was created by the Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968 whihc was signed by President Lyndon. B Johnson. The Central Arizona Porject consists of 336 miles of aqueducts, tunnels, pumping plants and pipelines.

Water in the West- San Luis Reservoir and O'Neill Forebay- California

Nestled in the grassy hills of the western San Joaquin Valley near historic Pacheco Pass  (windiest road in America), San Luis Reservoir State Recreation Area.

San Luis Reservoir.

After hectic driving from the Channel Islands we arrived at the reservoir after midnight on June 23; the stars at the resevoir were incredible.The next day we stopped by the resevoir and had a discussion about it.

The San Luis Resevoir has 2, 040,000 million acre feet of storage and is the largest off stream reservoir in the United States. San Luis Reservoir was constructed as a storage reservoir for the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project. It stores runoff water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta that would otherwise flow into the  Pacific ocean. The water arrives through the California Aqueduct and the Delta-Mendota Canal to the O- Neill Forebay.

San Luis Reservoir and O'Neill Forebay serve as the upper and lower reservoirs for the Gianelli Hydroelectric plant, whihc began operation in 1968. The plant has eight turbines that pruce a comibed 424 megawatts electricity. During non peak electricity times when cost is low, water is pumped fomr the Forebay to the Reservoir and then during the day is released through the San Luis Dam thus creating hydropower that you now can sell.

Water in the West- California State University

Early evening on June 20, we stopped at the University of California in Fullerton, CA and had a discussion there with Harmone Hawley, Ph.D about water and air qualtitles issues on the West Coast. The talk mainly concentrated on Orange County in California near Los Angeles and the MWD or Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Map of MWD of California.

This water district delivers over 1.7 billion gallons of water daily to an area of about 5,200 square feet. That is over 19 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside,San Bernardino, and Ventura counties.

Orange County itself gets half of it water from local sources and then the other half from Northern Calfornia and the Colorado River. Orange County also does not operate its water basin in a safe yield mode. They pump as much groundwater as they need from the basin ata time and average its use over a few years. As a consequence, the ground as been sinking from the overpumping.

Sinkholes can occur after overpumping.

Another concern in Orange County is salt water intrusion. They have one of the most aggressive prevention systems in the country- this includes the Alamintos and Talbert Gap. There is also a desalination plant near Santa Barbara, CA but it is too exensive still to put into use yet.

On to air quality, Los Angeles is the direst city concerning ozone in the United States. Just being near it for the short time we were for the talk at the University, my throat hurt fomr the air pollution. The amount of automobiles in the city are to blame- pushing the PM 2.5 and PM 10 through the roof. Particle matter 2.5 is inhalable (the one to be more concerned about) and Particle matter 10 gets caught in your mucus in your lungs. Los Angele's situation is partly to blmae for it location; the city if located in a valley so all the pollution is trapped there. The CA-ARB, California Air Resources Board has been monitoring the citie's air quality since the 1970s.

Los Angeles' location is partly to blame for the air qualtiy.

Water in the West- Hoover Dam

We drove by the Hoover Dam on June 19. I only saw the dam from the road, but we stopped by and took pictures at Lake Mead.  Lake Mead is the largest man-made resevoir in the United States. It can hold about 28.5 million acre feet of water.

Lake Mead.

Aerial view of Lake Mead and Hoover Dam.

The Hoover Dam was built between 1931 and 1935 during the Great Depression. Thousands of workers' hard work was put into the dam and many workers died as well (no bodies as we know of buried within dam). The dam is controversially named after Presidnet Herbert Hoover.

The inner workings of the dam.

Tha dam is located on the border between Nevada and Arizona (gives power to NV, AZ, and CA). It has a maximum production of 2,080 megawatts of electricity with its 17 generators.

The massive Hoover Dam.



Water in the West-Glen Canyon Dam/Lake Powell/Horseshoe Bend

We stayed the night of June 15 at the Wahweap Campgorund, downstream of Glen Canyon Dam. Our camp was right next to the Dam’s reservoir- Lake Powell-which holds 24.3 million acre feet of water.

Lake Powell.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

It felt so good to swim in the reservoir which felt like a natural lake and looked like a lake (it was complete with houseboats on it). The night at Lake Powell the sunset and the moon rose orange at the same time- it was a beautiful sight to behold.

Sunset at Glen Canyon Recreation Area.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

The next morning we did not know if it was Mountain or Pacific Time (half of the recreation area is in Utah and the other half in Arizona) so we showed up one hour early for our tour of the Glen Canyon Dam. They had a very extensive visitor center so we kept ourselves busy. 

Rachel became a junior ranger while we waited for our tour!

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

The official sign.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Our tour guide was Curtis and he was very enthusiastic. The Dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation part of the Department of Interior. It took 400,000 buckets to complete the project in September 1963; that is enough concrete to make a four lane highway from Phoenix, Arizona to Chicago, Illinois. One can see 583 feet of the dam but it is truly 720 feet tall.

View from the top of the dam.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Glen Canyon Dam has eight generators that produce electrical current at 13,800 volts each aka 1.3 million kilowatts of power. Hydropower is 85% efficient compared to coal that is 50% efficient.

Turbines of the dam.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

While at the dam we also had a ranger talk, her name was Katie. She brought to our attention about hidden water in the cloths we buy and food we eat.

In food: one hamburger- 708 gallons

Pair of jeans: 100 gallons

In electricity- one hour of watching TV is 10 gallons

 So how many jeans do you have in your closet?

Contemplating life at the Bend.

Photo Credit: Kristen Meidt

After our tour and discussions at dam, we headed to good old Wal-Mart to stock up on food for our trek down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Then we went for lunch at Horseshoe Bend, a lovely geological feature carved out of the canyon rock by the Colorado River located in Page, Arizona.

Horseshoe Bend.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire


Diagram of a dam that produces hydropower.

Water in the West- Salt Lake City, Utah

At Antelope Island, the morning of June 13 on our way to Bryce Canyon – the South end of Salt Lake.

The Great Salt Lake in all her glory.

The Great Salt Lake is the largest U.S. lake located west of the Mississippi River. It was once called Bonneville Lake -14,000-30,000 years ago. The lake was 131 miles by 131 miles. Yearly, 2.9 million acre feet evaporate from Salt Lake and 2.2 million metric tons of minerals enter. The salinity of the Lake varies from 5%-30%. The salinity of the Dead Sea is close to 30%.

           

 In the 1800s, a railroad divided Salt Lake into a North and South end- it did not allow water flow between the two ends and we see the effects of that now. The South side has a higher level of water and a lower salinity because fresh water enters the Lake. The North end which does not have water entering from another body of water it has a higher salinity.

The Lake has many uses:

The salt in the Lake is used to make salt licks for cattle and other livestock. The salt is also used in hydrochloric acid, fertilizers and chlorine gas. There is an industry in the collecting the shrimp to feed fish. Millions of birds feed on the shrimp. It is too expensive to make table salt out of the Lake and recently there has been oil discovered under the Lake- but that would disrupt the ecosystem of the Lake and cause pollution as well so the oil has not been excavated yet.



Water in the West- Colorado River Compactt/Flaming Gorge, Utah.

The Colorado River, is the most litigated river in the world and it is only 1450 miles long. (The Mississippi is over 2,000 miles long and the Nile and Amazon are over 4,000 miles long.)

The Colorado River Basin Compact is divided like this:

Upper Basin States Allocations:

Colorado 3.88 million acre feet

Utah 1.73 million acre feet

New Mexico 0.84 million acre feet

Wyoming 1.05 million acre feet

Lower Basin State Allocations:

California 4.4 million acre feet

Arizona 2.8 million acre feet

Nevada 0.7 million acre feet

To get the water to the states dams had to be built along the Colorado River. There are two reasons to build dams for hydropower and of course for their reservoirs which people can slowly release water when they need it in droughts.

We camped next to the reservoir of the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah (very close to the border of Wyoming) the night of June 11. Flaming Gorge has 3.78 million acre feet of water storage and generates 150 megawatts

of activity.

Unloading the vans at the campsite.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Resevoir, mountains and campsite.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Resevoir, mountains and beautiful rocks.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

Sunset at Flaming Gorge campground.

Photo Credit: Erin Maguire

  Other major dams along the river are the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell its reservoir, Hoover Dam and its reservoir Lake Mead, the Davis Dam and its reservoir Lake Havasu and the Parker and Imperial Dams.On our journey, we will camp next to Lake Powell and take a tour of Glen Canyon Dam and we will stop by and talk about the Hoover Dam.





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.