Prisons recycle to save energy, money
November 5, 2008
Of all the things convicted murderer Robert Knowles has been called during his 13 years behind bars, recycler hasn’t been one of them.
But there he was one morning, pitchfork in hand, composting food scraps from the main chow line and coffee grounds from prison headquarters — doing his part to "green" the prison.
"It’s nice to be out in the elements," said Knowles, 42, stirring dark, rich compost that will amend the soil at the small farm where he and fellow inmates of the Cedar Creek Corrections Center grew 8,000 pounds of organic vegetables this year.
Inmates of the minimum-security facility, 25 miles from Olympia, the state capital, raise bees, grow organic tomatoes and lettuce, compost 100 percent of food waste and even recycle shoe scraps that are made into playground turf.
"It reduces cost, reduces our damaging impact on the environment, engages inmates as students," said Eldon Vail, secretary of the Washington Department of Corrections, which oversees 15 prisons and 18,000 offenders. "It’s good security."
As around-the-clock operations, prisons are voracious resource hogs, and administrators are under increasing pressure to reduce waste and conserve energy and water.
In 2007, states spent more than $49 billion to feed, house, clothe, treat and supervise 2.3 million offenders, the Pew Center on the States reported this year.
As the prison population has grown this decade, up 76 percent from 1.3 million in 2000, the number of prisons and jails has risen with it. The latest U.S. Bureau of Justice data show 1,821 facilities in 2005, up from 1,668 in 2000.
To keep costs down, the Indiana Department of Corrections installed water boilers that run on waste wood chips, and built a wind turbine at one prison that generates about 10 kilowatts an hour and saves $2,280 a year.
At Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, Calif., 6,200 solar panels send energy back to the grid, enough to power 4,100 homes a year. The prison was trying to meet an executive order requiring state agencies to reduce energy use by 20 percent by 2015, said a spokeswoman, Lt. Sue Smith.
North Carolina’s Department of Corrections switched to chemical-free cleaners and vegetable-based inks. This summer, because of a water shortage, inmates converted 50-gallon pickle barrels into small cisterns that capture rainwater.
Under a state mandate to reduce energy use, the Oregon Department of Corrections replaced old appliances with energy-efficient ones, installed solar water heaters and used a geothermal well to heat water. It also modified washing machines so they could reuse rinse-water to wash about a million pounds of clothes a month.
At Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton, Ore., inmates recycle scraps from old prison blues to make diaper bags for women’s shelters and dog beds for animal shelters.
"We try to model prosocial behavior," said Vern Rowan, business manager for the Oregon Department of Corrections. Being sustainable "is something that everybody should be doing, regardless of where they’re at."
Cedar Creek, in the heart of a forest, feels more like an outdoor retreat than institutional lockup.
Most of the 400 inmates are in a work program, and put in between six and eight hours a day.
The responsibility of caring for the prison’s three hives of Italian honey bees falls mostly to Daniel Travatte, 36, a soft-spoken former drug addict who is serving 10 years for attempted armed robbery.
Under the supervision of prison counselor Vicki Briggs, Travatte has learned to harvest honey — which inmates occasionally eat with breakfast biscuits — and use beeswax to make lotions. He’s become an expert on their habits.
"I’m trying to change myself," said Travatte. "A lot of people go through prison with no intention of changing. I love working with the bees. It keeps me busy. I have a lot of responsibility to take care of."
While there isn’t scientific evidence that such activities are helping inmates, Nalini Nadkarni, an environmental studies professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., notes anecdotal evidence that it’s working.
"They were stimulating their minds and having conversations that were different than ‘How much more time we have left’?" said Nadkarni.
One inmate went beyond conversations, enrolling in a doctoral program when he got out and co-authoring a research paper with Nadkarni on a moss-growing project she started to help reduce the impact of wild moss harvesting on forests.
While Cedar Creek went green out of economic necessity — it had to conserve because it didn’t have the wastewater capacity to expand four years ago — it is now embracing other benefits, said Dan Pacholke, a state prison administrator who helped implement many of the practices.
Cedar Creek uses 250,000 fewer gallons of water a year, saves $6,000 to $8,400 annually on garbage bills and avoided a $1.4 million sewage treatment plant upgrade.
A large "Con-Post" marks the prison’s composting station, made of recycled concrete blocks and reclaimed wood, where Knowles spends about six hours a day, making sure the compost gets enough heat, moisture and air to break down food scraps.
"They trust me to do all this with no supervision," said Knowles, who is serving time for the hit-and-run death of an off-duty police officer.
"I like growing the vegetables," Knowles said. "My mom had a garden. I can see having my own garden."
UPS introduces hydraulic hybrid vehicle
October 30, 2008
United Parcel Service will be the first delivery company to add hydraulic hybrid vehicles (HHVs) to its fleet, a move that it says will bring “dramatic fuel savings and environmental benefits.”
The technology was developed in an Environmental Protection Agency lab. HHVs store energy by compressing hydraulic fluid under pressure in a large chamber. UPS trial tested the technology two years ago.
On Monday, UPS and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled in Atlanta the prototype vehicle, which posted a 45-to-50 percent improvement in fuel economy compared with conventional diesel delivery trucks.
UPS thinks similar fuel economy improvements and a 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide are achievable in daily, real-world use of the new technology.
UPS has ordered seven HHVs, which will have a high-efficiency diesel engine combined with a hydraulic propulsion system, replacing the conventional drive train and transmission. The vehicle uses hydraulic pumps and hydraulic storage tanks to capture and store energy, similar to what is done with electric motors and batteries in a hybrid electric vehicle. In this case, the diesel engine is used to periodically recharge pressure in the hydraulic propulsion system. Fuel economy is increased in three ways: vehicle braking energy is recovered instead of being wasted; the engine operates more efficiently, and the engine can be shut off when stopped or decelerating, UPS said.
“There is no question that hydraulic hybrids, although little known to the public, are ready for prime time use on the streets of America,” said David Abney, UPS chief operating officer, in a news release. “We are not declaring hydraulic hybrids a panacea for our energy woes, but this technology certainly is as promising as anything we’ve seen to date.”
UPS will use the first two of the new HHV’s in Minneapolis during the first quarter of 2009. Eaton Corp. (NYSE: ETN), which helped develop and refine the vehicle’s hydraulic hybrid power system, will monitor the vehicle’s fuel economy performance and emissions in the Minneapolis area. The other five HHV’s will be deployed later in 2009 and early 2010.
UPS’ green fleet operates in the United States, Germany, France, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom and has traveled about 144 million miles since 2000. The fleet includes electric, hybrid electric, CNG, liquefied natural gas and propane-powered vehicles.
UPS operates its Worldport international air cargo hub at Louisville International Airport.
Alternative Energy Suddenly Faces Headwinds
October 26, 2008
For all the support that the presidential candidates are expressing for renewable energy, alternative energies like wind and solar are facing big new challenges because of the credit freeze and the plunge in oil and natural gas prices.
Shares of alternative energy companies have fallen even more sharply than the rest of the stock market in recent months. The struggles of financial institutions are raising fears that investment capital for big renewable energy projects is likely to get tighter.
Advocates are concerned that if the prices for oil and gas keep falling, the incentive for utilities and consumers to buy expensive renewable energy will shrink. That is what happened in the 1980s when a decade of advances for alternative energy collapsed amid falling prices for conventional fuels.
“Everyone is in shock about what the new world is going to be,” said V. John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology, a California advocacy group. “Surely, renewable energy projects and new technologies are at risk because of their capital intensity.”
Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain both promise ambitious programs to develop various kinds of alternative energy to combat global warming and achieve energy independence.
Mr. Obama talks of creating five million new jobs in renewable energy and nearly tripling the percentage of the nation’s electricity supplied by renewables by 2025. Mr. McCain has run television advertisements showing wind turbines and has pledged to make the United States the “leader in a new international green economy.”
But after years of rapid growth, the sudden headwinds facing renewables point to slowing momentum and greater dependence on government subsidies, mandates and research financing, at a time when Washington is overloaded with economic problems.
John Woolard, chief executive officer of BrightSource Energy, a solar company, said he believed the long-term future for renewables remained promising, though “right now we are looking at tumultuous and unpredictable capital markets.”
Venture capital financing for some advanced solar projects and for experimental biofuels, like ethanol made from plant wastes, is drying up, according to analysts who track investment flows.
At least two wind energy companies have had to delay projects in recent days because of trouble raising capital. Several corn ethanol projects have been delayed for lack of financing in Iowa and Oklahoma since last month, and one plant operator in Ohio filed for bankruptcy protection last week.
Tesla Motors, the maker of battery-powered cars, recently announced it had been forced to delay production of its all-electric Model S sedan, close two offices and lay off workers.
Investment analysts say initial and secondary stock offerings by clean energy companies across global markets have slowed to a crawl since the spring, and for the full year could total less than half of the record $25.4 billion for 2007.
Worldwide project financings for new construction of wind, solar, biofuels and other alternative energy projects this year fell to $17.8 billion in the third quarter, from $23.2 billion in the second quarter, according to New Energy Finance, a research firm in London. The slide is expected to be sharper in the fourth quarter and next year.
In the United States, financing for new projects and venture capital and private equity investments in renewable energy this year might still top last year’s results because so much money was in the pipeline at the beginning of the year, but the pace has slowed sharply in the last month.
The next presidential administration, to make good on campaign rhetoric and continue supporting renewables, will have to choose alternative energy over other programs at a time of ballooning deficits. Analysts say that is no sure thing.
“Government funding for renewables is now going to have to compete with levels of government funding in other areas that were unimaginable six months ago,” Mark Flannery, an energy analyst for Credit Suisse, said.
The central questions facing renewables now, experts say, are how long credit will be tight and how low oil and natural gas prices will fall. Oil and gas are still relatively expensive by historical standards, but the prices have fallen by half since July. Some economists expect further declines as the economy weakens.
Proposed ND wind farm one of world’s largest
October 26, 2008
BISMARCK, N.D. - A proposed 2,000-megawatt wind farm in northwestern North Dakota would be one of the world’s largest energy projects, although new electric transmission lines are needed for it to be built, state regulators say.
“The numbers that you see being thrown around as potential development in North Dakota are truly eye-popping,” Public Service Commissioner Tony Clark said Wednesday.
Hartland Wind Farm LLC is planning the $4 billion project in Ward, Burke and Mountrail counties in northwestern North Dakota. The company wants to start construction in the fall of 2010.
It will be built in stages and ultimately should have 1,333 wind towers spread over 720 square miles, said Craig Fink, one of the project’s developers. The Public Service Commission accepted a letter of intent for the project Wednesday.
Its territory is bordered by Canada to the north, the Des Lacs River to the east, U.S. Highway 2 to the south and the western border of Burke and Mountrail counties, Public Service Commission filings say.
The commission’s president, Susan Wefald, said both the Hartland project and a separate, 1,000-megawatt wind farm planned for Oliver and Morton counties will require building new electric transmission lines to carry the power.
“Planning and construction of a major transmission line can take a number of years,” Wefald said.
FPL Energy LLC, of Juno Beach, Fla., is developing the 1,000-megawatt farm, which will cost about $2 billion to build.
Fink said Hartland expects to file its formal application for a siting permit for its wind farm in June 2009. The company would like to have the permit in hand by April 2010, and start putting up wind towers in the fall, he said.
Separately, the Public Service Commission voted to allow Sequoia Energy U.S., a unit of the Sequoia Energy Inc. of Winnipeg, Manitoba, to immediately file a request for a siting permit for a 150-megawatt wind farm in Rolette and Towner counties.
The Border Winds project includes 68 turbines and will cost about $300 million to build, a company filing said. Sequoia wants to begin construction in the fall of 2009.
At present, the nation’s largest operating wind farm is a 736-megawatt project near Abilene, Texas, called the Horse Hollow Energy Center. Projects of 1,000 megawatts or more are on the drawing boards, said Christine Real de Azua, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association in Washington, D.C.
Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who has gained public attention for his plan to displace imported oil with wind energy and natural gas, is planning a 4,000-megawatt wind farm in four counties in the Texas Panhandle.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC and TXU Corp., a Texas energy company, are separately developing a 3,000-megawatt project southeast of Amarillo, Texas.
“With anything that size, they are dependent on more transmission,” Real de Azua said. “They’re looking big, they’re ambitious, and these projects are feasible, but the missing component is the need for new transmission to bring that wind power to market.”
Check out our Sponsors below
