A windmill blade nearly 150 long is slung gently onto a flatbed at the Duluth port. A modified trailer is needed to transport the blade. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
The three blades will be bolted into the three openings in the rotor assembly. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
A cone projects from the front of each windmill when it's assembled. It protects the rotor assembly. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
Windmill propellers are stacked in a holding area in the Duluth port until they're needed at the windmill farm. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
Each tower consists of three sections which will be bolted together. When assembled, the towers will be either 60 or 80 meters high (about 200 feet or 260 feet). (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
A nacelle, or generator assembly, heads out for Mower County, Minnesota. The arms extending over the truck bed distribute the eighty-six tons of the nacelle. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
US demand for clean energy is growing so fast, supplies of generating systems are getting tight. Stephanie Hemphill reports on a challenge that could lead to more jobs in the US:
Transcript
US demand for clean energy is growing so fast, supplies of generating systems are getting tight. Stephanie Hemphill reports on a challenge that could lead to more jobs in the US:
Overseas manufacturers of wind generating systems are shipping them here as fast as they can. Now, several companies are building wind generator factories in the US.
Siemens is building a plant in Iowa. Suzlon is about to start production in Minnesota. Plants in Texas produce blades and towers.
It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. A production tax credit is in place, but it expires every two years.
Ron Johnson is with the port of Duluth, which handles windmill imports. He says the on-again, off-again support makes it hard for companies to plan and grow.
“Well, the deadline’s coming at the end of next year, and people are planning their projects, so we’re all anxious to see what Congress does.”
The American Wind Energy Association says producers are installing enough wind power this year to power the entire state of Rhode Island.
For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
A windmill blade nearly 150 feet long is slung gently onto a flatbed at the Duluth port. A modified trailer is needed to transport the blade. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
The three blades will be bolted into the three openings in the rotor assembly. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
A cone projects from the front of each windmill when it's assembled. It protects the rotor assembly. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
Windmill propellers are stacked in a holding area in the Duluth port until they're needed at the windmill farm. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
Each tower consists of three sections which will be bolted together. When assembled, the towers will be either 60 or 80 meters high (about 200 feet or 260 feet). (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
A nacelle, or generator assembly, heads out for Mower County, Minnesota. The arms extending over the truck bed distribute the eighty-six tons of the nacelle. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
U.S. demand for clean energy is growing fast. In fact, wind energy developers are ordering so many windmills, they’re running into a supply problem. Windmill manufacturers overseas have been shipping their products to the booming U.S. market. That’s already created some jobs, and now there are plans to build factories to produce windmills here. It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
U.S. demand for clean energy is growing fast. In fact, wind energy developers are ordering so many windmills, they’re running into a supply problem. Windmill manufacturers overseas have been shipping their products to the booming U.S. market. That’s already created some jobs, and now there are plans to build factories to produce windmills here. It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. Stephanie Hemphill reports:
At the Duluth Port Terminal, the BBC India is tied up to the dock. Two giant cranes slowly lower a silvery propeller onto a waiting truck. The blade is half as long as a football field. The extended bed of the eighteen-wheeler isn’t long enough to hold the entire length. A padded steel structure cradles the narrow end above the ground. There are 66 blades on the ship, three blades for each of twenty-two towers.
“The three blades will bolt into a hub, and then the hub attaches to the nacelle, the generator package, that’s the actual turbine, and the nacelle sits on top of the tower.”
Andrew Holdrup is the port captain for the shipping company. He was here in Duluth a year and a half ago, when the port handled its first ever shipment of windmills.
Holdrup says the demand for windmills is huge in the U.S.
“We have four ships; all they do is run from Denmark to Houston with Siemens windmills. We discharge them in Houston, the ship sails back empty to go pick up the next lot. Multiply that by all the other ports, and all the other windmill manufacturers, and it’s a huge business.”
It’s great business for Duluth’s port. Unloading the windmills requires iron workers to cut the steel where the pieces have been welded to the ship, and crane operators, and longshoremen. And truckers are staying in town waiting to pick up their loads. They’ll haul the windmills to wind farms being built in Mower County, Minnesota, and Oliver County, North Dakota. The port has also handled equipment for wind farms in Manitoba.
The boom in wind was primed in the early 1990s, when Congress set up a production tax credit for wind power. It allows a 1.9 cent-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit over ten years, for electricity produced by wind.
But the tax credit only runs for two years at a time. Ron Johnson is in charge of marketing for the Duluth Port Authority. He says that on-again, off-again approach has made it hard for businesses involved in wind energy to plan and grow.
“It’s kind of start up again, stop, start up again, stop. If you’re a trucking company with these specialized trailers, you don’t want to go out and buy fifty more of them if there’s a chance your whole fleet’s going to sit until Congress decides what to do.”
Johnson says there’s a lot of support in Congress for the tax credits, and he expects them to be renewed.
Steve Stengel works for FPL Energy, the company building the wind farms where these windmills are headed.
“It is part of the business, we understand that. And it does cause kind of starts & stops, if you will.”
But he says it’s possible to work around the periodic breaks in the tax credit because it takes a long time to plan a wind project anyway.
“Permitting issues, land lease issues, transmission issues. We have to plan as if the tax credit is going to be there.”
In fact, wind is growing dramatically in spite of the iffy nature of federal support. Several states now require utilities to invest in renewable energy, or offer incentives for wind power development. And as the cost of fossil fuels goes up, the relative cost of wind goes down.
It all adds up to a lot of demand, and recently, tight supplies.
The American Wind Energy Association’s Susan Sloan says orders are already in place for 2008 and beyond.
“Because of this boom and bust cycle but also because of this new acceptance of wind, we are seeing a tighter supply, and we need to have the manufacturing capabilities catch up.”
And that’s what’s happening.
It took two weeks for the Siemens windmills to sail from Denmark to Duluth. Now the company is building a factory in Fort Madison, Iowa. Siemens says it will employ 250 people, and start producing in the first half of 2007.
And in Pipestone, Minnesota, Suzlon, a company based in India, is about to start producing three blades a day, and the nosecones to go with them. The company plans to manufacture the electronic controls, and eventually employ up to 300 people. Suzlon says it has orders for the next two to three years.
For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
A therapy session might not be the place you’d expect to hear talk about Mother Nature. But some therapists believe the natural world and our personal lives are intimately connected, and they’re finding that nature can play a key role in the healing process. Kyle Norris has this story:
Transcript
A therapy session might not be the place you’d expect to hear talk about Mother Nature. But some therapists believe the natural world and our personal lives are intimately connected, and they’re finding that nature can play a key role in the healing process. Kyle Norris has this story:
Clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Franseen talks to people about their personal problems. Over time their discussions broaden-out. They talk about relationships with things like people, money, pets, and the environment around them – the earth. But when she gets to the earth, she doesn’t ask her clients about their relationships with it.
“The only way you can have a relationship with something is if you’re separate from it. But it’s as silly as talking about, ‘yeah I have a relationship with my gallbladder, how about you?’ It’s like ‘no we don’t, my gallbladder’s just a part of me.’ And really that’s what’s going on with the earth; we are as much a part of it as everything else is.”
Franseen believes that many of our physical and mental ailments happen when we forget this connection. Several years ago, she started incorporating the earth into her work. She found that this technique helped people transform an insane world, as opposed to adapt to one.
“We can’t just stop with relationship with self, relationship with family, relationship with community. We need to just keep taking it out as far as we can go. It includes relationship with all.”
The idea that “we are the earth” can sound a little weird to some people. At least one of her clients, 71 year-old Steve Morse, thought so at first. Morse considers regular therapy to be part of his spiritual practice. He works with Franseen in both individual and group sessions. Franseen asked Morse’s group to walk into the woods, sit alone for an hour, and listen for a message. A message from the birds, trees, and sky. When he heard this assignment Morse was skeptical.
“Well as a guy, you know, you don’t do this, it’s ‘whoa!’ it’s too new agey, too off-the-page, too goofy, it’s not masculine. There’s all kinds of reasons that this is not something that you do.”
As Morse sat alone in the woods, something he saw struck him. He noticed a pine seedling that was getting choked-out by the shade of an old tree. He thought to himself that the seedling would probably die, but that it didn’t know that. Morse said that observing the trees gave him consider new ideas about anxiety and unnecessary suffering.
Experts say one of the most powerful things about the natural world is how quickly it takes us to a place deep within ourselves. Jed Swift is the director of the eco-psychology concentration at Naropa University.
“The backdrop of nature, the emersion, what we call the emersion in nature, just stirs up so much emotional and unconscious material for people about safety, about risk, about their health, their survival, about fear, about well being and wholeness and unity, that a lot of therapists are finding that it can speed up the therapeutic process.”
Swift says that far too often, people perceive nature as a backdrop to the human experience. By remembering our connection to the natural world, he says we can enhance our health and our personal sense of identity.
Therapist Lisa Franseen says that for her, nature is a teacher and an inspiration.
“You know the tree grows to be a tree because that’s what it’s here to do, so that gives me hope that like, ‘ok’, then I’m here to do something, and I will just follow through with what I’m here to do.”
One of Franseen’s clients says that her whole life changed when she realized that she was not separate from the earth. The client said that nature also helped her to hear her own answers to life’s questions.
These techniques might not be for everyone, but many people who have used them say that nature helped open their senses to something that they might have missed on their own.
This past summer, the Environmental Protection Agency told some dry cleaners to phase out the use of a toxic chemical. Mark Brush reports several dry cleaning industry groups don’t like the ban, and now they’re suing the EPA:
Transcript
This past summer, the Environmental Protection Agency told some dry cleaners to phase out the use of a toxic chemical. Mark Brush reports several dry cleaning industry groups don’t like the ban, and now they’re suing the EPA:
The EPA’s rule only applies to dry cleaners located in residential buildings. They’re giving the cleaners 14 years to phase out the use of Perchloroethylene, or PERC. PERC is suspected of increasing the risk of cancer and other serious health problems.
Steve Risotto is with the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance. His group represents the makers of PERC and is suing the EPA. He says the alternatives to PERC might pose other risks.
“If you ask most cleaners what they would use instead of PERC, the hands down favorite is a synthetic hydrocarbon that is combustible. So now you’re bringing the issues of flammability and combustibility back into those residences.”
Industry groups are not the only ones who don’t like the rule. The Sierra Club, an environmental group, has also filed a lawsuit against the EPA. It wants PERC banned at all dry cleaners, not just in residential buildings.
A disease that has killed tens of thousands of birds is spreading throughout the Great Lakes region. The latest die-off occurred along a Lake Michigan shoreline. Linda Stephan reports officials now estimate that nearly 2600 birds died from that outbreak alone:
Transcript
A disease that has killed tens of thousands of birds is spreading throughout the Great Lakes region. The latest die-off occurred along a Lake Michigan shoreline. Linda Stephan reports officials now estimate that nearly 2600 birds died from that outbreak alone:
Recent tests confirm that the birds died from Type E botulism poisoning. Type E botulism is passed up the food chain from the invasive zebra and quagga mussels.
Steve Yancho is the Chief of Natural Resources for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. He says it’s a shame to see so many dead birds washed up on the beaches.
“You know the most disturbing of the bird species that we’re seeing are common loons. There’s not a lot of those in the state and we’re finding those mixed in with these others already at fairly alarming numbers.”
Yancho says the area has not seen this kind of die-off before, and officials don’t know when it might end.
It’s likely that thousands or tens of thousands of birds are dying and not being counted. That’s because wildlife officials can’t patrol all the shorelines throughout the Great Lakes.
Officials say a disease might be killing an invasive species of fish in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein reports:
Transcript
Officials say a disease might be killing an invasive species of fish in Lake
Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein
reports.
Where the lake and the river meet, people have been finding dead round
gobies.
“Dozens in some cases, hundreds of dead gobies that have been washing up on shores.”
Steve Litwiler is with New York’s Department of Environmental
Conservation. He says a change in water temperature or a poison could
cause the die-off, but initial sampling suggests some kind of disease.
“Is it a disease that could potentially affect other fish? Fortunately right
now the only fish that are dying appear to be the round gobies.”
If only the round gobies die, this could be a good news story. Round gobies
hitched a ride from Europe in the ballast of foreign freighters. They’ve
displaced native species across the Great Lakes by breeding faster and eating
other fishes’ eggs and young.
The continued operation of hydroelectric dams will be up for debate in the next decade. Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers is looking to remove the Boardman River dam in northern Michigan. This dam removal could impact how all future dam removals are completed. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources)
The Army Corps of Engineers is tackling a dam removal project that could affect how the Corps approaches future dam removals. In the next decade, communities will be deciding whether to keep operating tens of thousands of hydroelectric dams on rivers across the country. This project is significant because it involves several dams being taken out of production along the same stretch of river. The GLRC’s Bob Allen reports:
Transcript
The Army Corps of Engineers is tackling a dam removal project that
could affect how the Corps approaches future dam removals. In the next
decade, communities will be deciding whether to keep operating tens of
thousands of hydroelectric dams on rivers across the country. This
project is significant because it involves several dams being taken out of
production along the same stretch of river. The GLRC’s Bob Allen
reports:
(Sound of water)
The Boardman River is beautiful. It winds and turns and tumbles
through forested hillsides and passes along northern cedar swamps.
Sections of the upper river qualify as a blue ribbon trout stream, but a
series of dams along the lower half of the river changed some of the best
river water.
Steve Largent has worked on repairing damaged banks along the
Boardman for the last fifteen years. He says removing the dams will
restore faster flowing sections of the river, and clearing out the sand and
silt built up behind the dams will be good for trout and other critters.
“The sediment that is building up in the back of Brown Bridge pond
continues to move upstream as it fills in the upper end of the pond it’s
aggregrating upstream. It’s moving upstream further and further destroying
habitat further upstream.”
So a free running river will help wash away that sediment, but these days
it’s not just anglers who are interested in the Boardman River. Recently
river engineers have been drawn to the Boardman like trout to a fly
fisherman’s lure. They’re interested in landing the job of studying the
Boardman River and its dams. The million dollar study will look at
whether to keep or tear down three hydroelectric dams along a 17 mile stretch of river in northern Michigan just before it flows into Lake
Michigan.
Craig Fischenich is a research engineer with the Army Corps of
Engineers. He says the potential to remove three dams along the same
stretch of river is not something you’re going to find anywhere else.
“Whereas in many parts of the country they’re removing individual dams, they’re on systems that have other dams on them, and so this is an
opportunity here to actually try to restore an entire watershed.”
Fischenich says taking out the dams would mean improvements for
native fish. But there are risks too. If the dams go, invasive species
such as the parasitic sea lamprey could get upriver, and introduced
species such as steelhead and salmon could swim into the river and
compete with the native fish.
That prospect doesn’t exactly thrill John Wyrus, who lives on the
Boardman. He’d rather see some kind of obstacle down near the mouth
of the river to prevent introduced species from entering.
“So that these steelhead and salmon can’t get up the river. I would just
like to see it a brown trout and brook trout fishery.”
That’s the kind of scenario the study of the Boardman River would
consider.
(Sound of people talking)
Recently a lot of the engineers vying to do the study gathered at a
conference put together by the Corps of Engineers.
Gordon Ferguson works for ENSER Corporation. His company
is one of a dozen that submitted bids to land the study.
“This is a particularly interesting project because it involves a lot of
complex issues both from an engineering standpoint and also local
community issues. Property rights issues of homeowners along the
watershed.”
What they learn from the Boardman could be important to communities
near rivers across the nation.
Many of the tens of thousands of dams across the country are aging, and
in coming years, just like on the Boardman River, those with hydroelectric generating stations will need to be upgraded to keep their operating license.
The local utility says the dams on the Boardman don’t generate
enough power to make it worth fixing them. So they’re giving up the
licenses to generate electricity. Ownership of the dams reverts to the
local governments, and local officials are asking the Army Corps of
Engineers to pay for the study of the Boardman. The federal agency is
eager to be involved in this project.
The Boardman River study offers a chance for researchers to figure out
how to count less tangible values. Like how removing dams will affect
other wildlife such as eagles and osprey along the river.
Jock Coyngham is an ecologist for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Typically, he says, wildlife and recreation get discounted in this kind of
study because it’s easier to quantify things like hydropower, but it’s
important to figure out what value they have.
“If you make all your resource decisions as a state and as a country over
a long period of time pretty soon there won’t be any substantial fish
populations, any wild reproduction. Just because traditional cost-benefit
analysis tends to underestimate those ecosystem services and values, let
alone aesthetics.”
The Army Corps is waiting final approval for funding. Once given the
OK, the study of the Boardman River and its dams… could very well lay
the groundwork for other dam removals around the country.
Julie Craves stands in the area where she sets up mist nets during migration to catch land birds. (Photo by Christina Shockley)
Researchers have been monitoring the spread of a potentially deadly strain of avian influenza overseas. Health officials worry the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form that could infect humans. Some researchers say the virus could make its way to the United States as early as this fall… by way of wild migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:
Transcript
Researchers have been monitoring the spread of a potentially deadly
strain of avian influenza overseas. Health officials worry the H5N1
strain could mutate into a form that could infect humans. Some
researchers say the virus could make its way to the United States as early
as this fall… by way of wild migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina
Shockley reports:
Wild birds carry all sorts of influenza viruses. Most are of no threat to
people, but the H5N1 strain is different. When it gets into people… it’s
often fatal. Overseas the strain has killed whole farms of poultry such as
chicken and ducks… it’s also infected other types of animals, including
cats.
The H5N1 strain has not been found in the United States, but most
experts say it’s just a matter of time before it is. Some say infected
domestic poultry or smuggled pet birds will likely bring the virus to the
U.S. Others say the virus could come here by way of migrating birds…
that are on the move now.
Steve Schmitt is the lead veterinarian for Michigan’s Department of
Natural Resources. He says birds from Asia… that are possibly infected
with the H5N1 strain are on their way to Alaska right now. There, they
could mingle with birds that will later fly back to the United States.
Schmitt says there are four major flyways over the U.S.… the Pacific,
central, Mississippi, and Atlantic.
“There are birds that will winter in Asia and then come back and nest in
Alaska. If they bring the virus back with them, then they could transmit
that to birds that are in Alaska that come down any of these four major
flyways, and that of course is a big concern, moving it all over the
country.”
Schmitt says most birds that nest in Alaska use the Pacific flyway along
the Pacific coast… to migrate south to the U.S. and Mexico. He says
that means, if the virus were to come to the United States via migratory
birds, the pacific coast would probably be its first stop in the lower 48.
Schmitt says then, birds that use the other flyways could become
infected.
“Most of the migration is north-south, but you do have a few that will
move – jump over to another flyway, and when that happens, the
potential to move the virus to that new flyway happens. Once it’s in a
new flyway, that north-south movement would take over.”
Programs are underway an Alaska and throughout the United States to
test wild birds for various strains of avian influenza, including H5N1.
Experts say waterfowl and shore birds are the most likely carriers of the
dangerous strain, but some say land birds – such as migrating songbirds –
should be tested, too.
(Sound of birds)
Julie Craves studies land birds at the Rouge River Bird Observatory on
the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus. She catches and bands
thousands of wild birds each year during their spring and fall migrations.
This year, Craves will participate in a study that hopes to eventually test
hundreds of thousands of birds across the U.S. and Latin America for
avian flu strains.
“It’s just a great opportunity with people handling birds already, we may
find out some very interesting things about which subtypes are present in
land birds, and if indeed this disease does come to North America, we
will have a head start on seeing what types of migratory pathways are
being used by birds.”
Craves says very little is known about how avian flu moves among land
birds, and experts say each time the virus is transmitted to a different
species it mutates, and each time it mutates, the chances are greater that
it will change into a form that’s easily passed among humans. That’s a
big concern, because such a mutation could lead to a quick spread of
human cases across the globe.
But some say that might never occur… they say the strain might be
unable to mutate into one that’s dangerous to humans.
Arnold Monto is a professor of epidemiology at the University of
Michigan. He says there will be a problem if the strain mutates, but it’s
unlikely people will get the virus from migrating birds.
“I doubt very much whether we’re even gong to see even a handful of
cases in the United States, should avian influenza arrive, and it probably
will, with the migratory birds coming down from Alaska, perhaps next
fall.”
Monto says most of the human transmissions overseas have been from
poultry being raised in the back yard, and not from wild birds. That
means visiting the ducks and geese in the park… and feeding songbirds
in the back yard… are not high-risk activities. Monto says people should
take basic precautions, such as washing hands, to avoid contracting any
sort of flu virus.
Many experts say, on the list of things to worry about, catching a deadly
form of avian influenza is no where near the top of the list of dangers.
Julie Craves stands in the area where she sets up mist nets during migration to catch land birds. (Photo by Christina Shockley)
Researchers are tracking a potentially dangerous strain of avian flu in Asia, Europe, and Africa. They say the H5N1 virus could mutate and cause a human pandemic. Experts say domestic poultry or smuggled pet birds could bring the virus into the U.S. Others say it will arrive this fall by way of migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:
Transcript
Researchers are tracking a potentially dangerous strain of avian flu in
Asia, Europe, and Africa. They say the H5N1 virus could mutate and
cause a human pandemic. Experts say domestic poultry or smuggled pet
birds could bring the virus into the U.S. Others say it will arrive this fall
by way of migratory birds. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:
Millions of birds will migrate across the globe along major flyways in
the coming weeks. Some birds from Asia will fly to Alaska to reach
summer nesting sites. If those birds carry the H5N1 strain of avian flu
with them, they could transmit the virus to birds that will later stop in the
United States.
Steve Schmitt is the lead veterinarian for Michigan’s Department of
Natural Resources.
“The pacific flyway far and away has the majority of birds that nest in
Alaska and then move south through the fall into Mexico.”
That means if the virus arrives in the lower 48 states via migratory birds,
it would likely arrive first in a state along the Pacific coast.
Health officials across the country say some nasty night critters are making a comeback. Bed bug cases are up. And in 2005, they were reported in 43 states. The GLRC’s Tana Weingartner reports:
Transcript
Health officials across the country say some nasty night critters are
making a comeback. Bed bug cases are up, and in 2005, they were reported
in 43 states. The GLRC’s Tana Weingartner reports:
It turns out your mother knew what she talking about, when she
reminded you to “sleep tight” and “don’t let the bed bugs bite.” The
blood-sucking insects are popping up in hotels and homes around the
country.
Steve Chordas is a public health entomologist with the Ohio Department
of Health. He blames increases in travel and the banning of some
pesticides for the bed bug resurgence, but, he says, the bugs are more of
a nuisance than a public health threat.
“There’ve been some diseases that have been isolated from the bed bugs,
but it’s not been shown, scientifically at least, that these are able to be
vectored by the bed bugs or transmitted from the bed bugs to a new
victim.”
Bed bugs are like tiny hitchhikers that can hide in your luggage and
clothing if you stay in an infested hotel room. Extensive cleaning and
insecticides are usually needed to get rid of a bed bug infestation.
A windmill blade nearly 150 long is slung gently onto a flatbed at the Duluth port. A modified trailer is needed to transport the blade. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
