Tag: generate electricity

Dam Removal’s Balancing Act

  • 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.


For the GLRC, I’m Bob Allen.

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Making Power Out of Pollution

  • Ford Motor Company installs a permanent Fumes to Fuel system at Michigan Truck Plant after a successful pilot program at the Ford Rouge Center last year. (Photo courtesy of Ford Motor Company)

Pollution from factories and other places might be dollars just going up in smoke. But a promising new technology turns these ordinarily troublesome waste products into something that’s especially valuable these days: cheap electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has this
report:

Transcript

Pollution from factories and other places might be dollars just going up
in smoke, but a promising new technology turns these ordinarily
troublesome waste products into something that’s especially valuable
these days: cheap electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie
Halpert has this report:


Remember the children’s story, where Rumpelstiltskin was able to take
straw, a cheap, abundant material, and magically transform it into
precious gold? Well, these days, cheap energy is like gold, and one
company has found a way to similarly generate power from pollution.


(Sound of engine running)


To see how it works, I’m standing on a roof sixty-five feet above the
ground. This is where Ford Motor Company maintains its pollution
control equipment. There are rectangular gray metal boxes as tall as I am
all over the roof, so many that we can barely walk between them. Under
the roof, they’re painting trucks. The paint emits vapors that Ford is now
capturing with these big boxes of machinery.


Mark Wherrett is Ford’s principal environmental engineer.


“We’re here at the Ford Motor Company Michigan truck plant, where the
paint solvent is collected from the process and used as a fuel to make
electricity in a Stirling Engine.”


The Stirling Engine is key. Here’s how it works. Ford’s using an engine
developed by STM Power. STM is using an old engine style called a
Stirling Engine that was once used in place of a steam engine. Instead of
using coal or wood to heat up water and make steam, STM burns the
paint fumes to heat up hydrogen and power the engine. The fumes will
generate 55 kilowatts of electricity. That’s enough to power 11 homes.


There’s not as much pollution emitted at the end, since burning can be
adjusted to temperatures where pollutants are reduced. Wherrett says
that for Ford, the technology simply has no downsides.


“The fumes to fuel process takes the environmental emissions and turns
them on their head, so instead of them being a waste product that we
have to dispose of, we can then turn it into a commodity where we can
then use that to make electricity and use that in our plant systems.”


And that means Ford doesn’t have to purchase as much power from the
grid.


Dorrance Noonan is CEO of STM Power, the company that’s redesigned
the old engine. Noonan says Ford is a perfect candidate for this
technology.


“We’re really excited about the Ford project because it offers a
tremendous opportunity to manufacturing companies and large paint
operations, who have large VOC problems that they have to deal with in
very expensive ways.”


The Ford plant is just the beginning for the company. They also plan to
deliver their portable on-site generators to landfills and wastewater
treatment plants. In that situation, methane gas is used as the fuel to
generate electricity. Noonan says his company has a bright future.


“Well, in the next couple of years, we see strong penetration in our two focus
markets, which are the landfill markets in the U.S. and the wastewater
treatment markets in the United States, and then we see that expansion
going outside of the United States to Europe and eventually to Asia.”


There are some skeptics.


Dan Rassler, with the Electric Power Research Institute, says STM’s
technology does have the potential to create viable new sources of
energy, but more companies need to actually start using it before he can
know for sure, and he says that right now the technology is still too
expensive for many companies.


“We’d like to see the capitol costs of these systems be lower than where
they are today.”


Right now, an STM unit costs $65,000. Rassler would like to see overall
costs cut by 10 to 20 percent. He says costs could decrease as more of
these units come on line.


STM CEO Dorrance Noonan says the costs are comparable to competing
on-site generators, and these expenses will be offset by using the free
fuel used to generate electricity that his engines provide. Noonan says
that continuing high natural gas prices will be his technology’s best
friend, as companies strive for ways to reduce energy costs.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Halpert.

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Affordable Housing Goes Green

  • Here is what a solar electric system looks like when it is mounted on a home. The panels are grid-connected and the system has backup battery. (Photo courtesy of NREL)

Often only pricey homes benefit from energy efficient and environmentally friendly technologies such as solar panels and completely non-toxic materials, but that kind of green technology is finding favor with non-profit groups that provide affordable housing.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at why many non-profits are trying to do good by building green:

Transcript

Often only pricey homes benefit from energy efficient and
environmentally friendly technologies such as solar panels and
completely non-toxic materials, but that kind of green technology is
finding favor with non-profit groups that provide affordable housing.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at why many
non-profits are trying to do good by building green:


Holly Denniston’s got a tough job. She’s the real-estate director for a
non-profit housing agency. Denniston’s got not one, but two, bottom
lines to watch. On the one hand, she’s trying to build affordable housing
for thousands of low and moderate-income families in Chicago. On the
other hand, it’s not enough to develop a cheap house and walk away.


As a nearby commuter train rolls by, Denniston explains she’s got to
make sure families can afford to stay in these homes.


“We want affordable housing in the long run. When heating costs rise, when
electricity costs rise, we don’t want our homeowners to have to move
out. We want them to live in these houses for thirty years or for as long
as they want and be able to raise a family here without spending all of
their dollars on housing.”


That means the best fit for struggling families are homes that are cheap
to buy and cheap to live in.


Denniston leads me up the stairs of a nearly-finished town home she says
fits that bill.


(Sound of steps and door)


Inside, it’s not much different from high-priced town homes sprouting up
in most cities, but Denniston says I probably missed the most notable
feature of the building: a roof made of solar shingles.


“If you would take down the ceiling from the second floor, you would
see a spider web of lines coming down, leading down to the back of the
house, and then leading to an inverter in the basement.”


The shingles and power inverter generate electricity. The system’s
simple and needs almost no intervention by the occupants, but more
importantly, it’ll save the family thousands of dollars in power
bills in the next few years, and Denniston says this isn’t even their most
efficient home.


Some of their homes consume less than three hundred dollars worth of
energy per year – even with cold Chicago winters, but building homes
like this isn’t cheap.


The solar shingle system added thousands of dollars in up-front building
costs. So, how do groups like Bethel build green while trying to keep
their own costs down?


Well, usually, they get help.


“Basically I think we can say that all of the affordable housing projects
that are doing this are doing it because they’re subsidized by either state
or utility programs.”


Edward Connelly is with New Ecology Incorporated, a group that studies
and promotes green affordable housing.


“The up-front cost is generally not in within the budget of an
affordable housing developer for photo voltaics, because they tend to be
expensive.”


Reliance on government or utility company subsidies can cause
problems. Connelly says some states make these subsidies available to
everyone, not just non-profits.


That means non-profits have to compete with traditional homebuilders
for the money to build green, and the subsidy programs sometimes
run short of demand.


“The utilities this year have run out of money for the energy star rebates
in Massachusetts because so many people took advantage of them, and
that’s not just in the affordable realm.”


Affordable, green housing faces other problems, too.


These projects sometimes move at a snail’s pace. That’s because
agencies often have to juggle several funding sources. Each government
agency or utility adds its own requirements, and managing all of them
consumes a lot of time. That means people who need affordable housing
have to wait longer, but when these groups do get the required funds, the
long-term benefits for low-to-moderate income families are impressive.


Chicago architect Susan King’s developed several green affordable
housing projects. She says non-profit projects benefit from energy
efficient technology, but their social missions push them even further.
They include features that go beyond just saving money.


“It’s an easy sell because they really do care for the life of the building,
whereas the for-profit developer just cares about that bottom line.”


She saw that attitude develop in her latest building.


It’s energy efficient and has solar power, but the non-profit also wanted
paint that wouldn’t pollute indoor air. King says, for now, housing
groups build more environmentally friendly homes than market rate
homebuilders with similar budgets, but she predicts that gap will narrow.
Average homeowners will soon demand more environmental amenities.


“I think the not-for-profits are setting an example that the for-profits are
going to follow, but they’re not going to follow it because they’re shamed into it.
I think they’re going to follow it because in the end, it’s going to make economic sense.”


Back at the energy efficient and environmentally friendly town-home,
Holly Denniston says some day, most of the features here will be
standard in the home industry, but she says non-profits will keep adding
additional value to homes even if that means spending more money up
front.


“To non-profits, that’s alright; we’re not looking for the highest return,
we’re looking at sustainable community.”


So, Denniston says a project like this shows affordable housing isn’t
about cheap housing. It’s about building homes where people can afford
to live.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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