Energy Flashes

By the Mother Earth News editors

September/October 1975

WE TOOK OUR HATS OFF TO MAINE'S GOVERNOR LONGLEY in Issue No. 34's "Energy Flashes", you may recall, because he and his Office of Energy Resources had just announced a crash program to convert the Pine Tree State's waste wood into methanol for auto and home heating fuel. Now we see Maine Times reporting that both the Office and the plan itself are "kaput", and suggesting that "political rivalry" between Longley and the former head of the OER may have been at least part of the cause. Which, we hasten to add (after reconsidering the idea of feeding trees to the hungry maws of automobiles) may be the best ending this story could have, after all.

PROPANE-POWERED TV? Yep. British engineers at England's Harwell Research Center recently unveiled a device-about the size of a kitchen stove-that converts the heat of a gas flame to alternating current, and will thus power a television set . . . or, apparently, any other household appliance. Propane, of course, is difficult to find and expensive to boot . . . but if the gizmo works with that gas, it might well adapt to methane, and . . . hmmmm . . .

THIRTY-FIVE AMBITIOUS FIFTH- AND SIXTH-GRADERS at an elementary school in Coburg, Oregon have (with the help of their teacher, Gary Raze) built themselves a 24-foot S-rotor wind turbine that keeps their classroom's lights burning merrily each and every day. Along the way, the students have learned basic electricity, carpentry, the workings of auto batteries and alternators, and the fundamentals of capturing the wind for energy. Now, that's education!

WHAT PRICE SUNSHINE? Thirty families in Kobe, Japan-all of whom had filed an appeal to stop construction of a nearby high-rise because the building would block out (and thus "deprive them of their right to enjoy") their neighborhood's sunshine-recently received $37,000 as "just compensation" for their loss of Ole Sol. We're afraid to ask how that particular figure was reached . . . .

. . . MEANWHILE, BACK IN THIS COUNTRY, similar conflicts concerning (gulp) "the right to use the sun's rays" have prompted a growing-and all too revealing-legal debate: While some lawyers quote ancient maxims such as "He who owns the soil also owns to the heavens and to the depths", other experts agree with William Thomas of the American Bar Foundation, who says United States law dictates that "the surface owner has a right to receive light from that area of the sky directly above his property, but not to receive it across the land of his neighbors." Is this a sign of things to come?

FOLKS IN HILL COUNTRY where there's a good year-round spring and all too expensive electricity might do well to look into Independent Power Developers' (Box 1467, Noxon, Montana 59853) new hydroturbine system-which comes complete with housing, turbine, runner, alternator, and full instrumentation-designed specifically for high-head applications. IPD also offers an extensive line of inverters, batteries, storage tanks, and Dunlite wind generators. They'll send you a complete product brochure (and lots of helpful information) for a dollar, if you're interested.

"A NATION OF ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDINGS BY 1990" -a technical report on an in-depth study by the American Institute of Architects-outlines a suggested national program to achieve . . . well, just what the booklet's title implies. According to the AIA (1735 New York Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006), the U.S. could be saving itself the equivalent of 12.5 million barrels of oil per day annually within 15 years . . . if we begin now to retrofit our old structures and design our new ones to be genuinely energy efficient. Single copies of the proposal are available free on request.

YOU SAY WATERWHEELS ARE OBSOLETE? Well in Lowell, Massachusetts 18 of the (ahem) "old-fashioned" power producers-some of which were built in the 1800's-provide the community's industry with about 20 million kilowatt-hours of current (or about 75% of user company needs) annually. The wheels-turned by water channeled through a system of canals-are electrically interconnected and tied into the local utility. A large part of Lowell's industry, then, is almost completely energy independent. Where would your town be in the event of a major power failure?

NUCLEAR REACTOR-PRODUCED RADIOACTIVE WASTES -deadly substances which will remain "hot" and potentially dangerous for thousands of years-are piling up because storage space for the material is at a premium and no one has yet come up with a safe disposal method for the blasted stuff. While scientists and engineers offer proposals as outrageous as launching the atomic "trash" into space and as shortsighted as dumping it into the sea, more and more people are coming to see the light: The immediate and long-term hazards presented by the very existence of nuclear fission reactors far outweigh any so-called "advantages" the atomic industry may still be able to conjure up in its somewhat befuddled collective head.

A "BREAKTHROUGH" SOLAR ENERGY CELL made of gallium arsenide, and measuring only one-third of an inch in diameter-yet capable of producing a full ten watts of electricity-has been developed by Varian Associates of Palo Alto, California. According to company spokesmen, other available devices-most of which are silicon-based -require up to "1,000 times the surface area to produce the same amount of energy". Varian says a large array of the new cells could produce "megawatt-rated" power, and reports that plans to construct a 1,000-watt, sun-tracking rooftop unit are now underway. This news, of course, has caused Varian's stock to make a healthy jump in price which, in turn, inspired at least one stockholder to comment that "Varian has a history of releasing news like this ... and it doesn't always check out". Let's hope that this press release does.