GARY SKEEM TAKES ENERGY SELF-RELIANCE SERIOUSLY: Skeem-a resident of McCammon, Idaho-heats and operates his house with electricity generated by a low-head, 25,000-watt hydroelectric plant that he built and installed himself. (In addition, he uses DC "juice" from a windplant to power some items in his house and outbuildings.) Utah Power & Light disconnected Skeem's service a while back when he refused to pay UP&L a $30 monthly "standby fee" . . . but Skeem doesn't seem to mind. In fact, he's now going ahead with plans to build a third electrical generating plant, which he says he'll use to operate a greenhouse and produce hydrogen (by electrolysis of water) to power his vehicles. Gary Skeem on energy self-sufficiency: "If you think you can't, you can't . . . but if you think you can, you can."
RAIL RAPID TRANSIT SYSTEMS MAY WASTE (RATHER THAN SAVE) ENERGY , according to University of California economist Charles A. Lave, who points out that while buses require only 2,900 Btu's of energy per passenger mile, San Francisco's BART trains consume some 4,610 Btu's per passenger mile. Says Lave: "It will even pay to shut down the existing [BART] rail system, once the Congressionally mandated improvement in auto fuel efficiency becomes effective." (Congress has decreed that-in the future-autos must use the equivalent of only 3,940 Btu's per seat mile.)
MANDATORY INSULATION? Federal Energy Administrator John F. O'Leary says that he's looking at legislation that would require utility companies to insulate private homes and bill the homeowners for the improvement, according to a report in High Country News ($12/25 issues from Box K, Lander, Wyo. 82520). "We're going to have to find some way . . . to go back into all the buildings and all the houses that have been built, to bring them up to a minimum standard of energy efficiency," O'Leary is quoted as saying. "I don't think we can do that through voluntarism."
WASTE STORAGE ISSUE BRINGS WEST GERMANY'S NUCLEAR PLANS TO A HALT . In mid-February, a court in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein ruled that construction of a nuclear plant in that state could not go forward until a clear national policy for waste disposal had been worked out. Because of this-and because of widespread anti-nuclear sentiment throughout West Germany-the Schmidt government has decided (according to a report in Science ) to bring all nuclear construction in the country to a halt until the waste disposal problem has been settled.
WHAT MAY BE THE COUNTRY'S LARGEST "GARBAGE-TO-GAS" CONVERSION FACILITY is presently under construction in Pompano Beach, Florida. When finished later this year, the $2.8 million plant is expected to produce 6,000 cubic feet of combustible methane gas per day from a daily input of 100 tons of sewage and other wastes. "If this experiment succeeds," Governor Reubin Askew told a ground-breaking-ceremony crowd, "it could make it possible to reduce the volume of municipal waste by 70 percent and [at the same time] produce quality methane for direct consumer use."
CALIFORNIA HAS BECOME THE FIRST STATE to adopt minimum energy-efficiency standards for household appliances. As of October 1977 all refrigerators, freezers, and room air conditioners sold in California must meet specifications set by the state Energy Commission. The new standards are expected to result in a net annual savings of 2.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity . . . which is roughly equivalent to the total yearly power output of California's San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Clemente.
PHONE COMPANY TAPS WIND POWER . The New England Telephone Company on Block Island, Rhode Island has begun using electricity generated by a wind turbine. The windplant-built by the Zephyr Wind Dynamo Co. of Brunswick, Maine-is expected to produce 22,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year . . . a substantial portion of the phone company's needs. (Excess "juice" will reportedly be turned over to the Block Island Power Co.)
A COUPLE THOUSAND USED BEVERAGE CANS-SOME BLACK PAINT , and about $250 worth of aluminum foil, glazing, and insulation . . . that's all you need to convert the south wall of your house into a giant, 60%-efficient air-handling solar collector, according to the good folks at the Northern Solar Power Co., 311 Elm St. South, Moorhead, Minn. 56560. If you don't believe it (or even if you do), send the Northern Solar Power people $2.00, and-in turn-they'll send you a detailed, crisply written Construction Manual telling you how it's done.
TALK ABOUT "HOT" GOODS : Among $24,000 worth of loot stolen from a parked truck in Labadieville, Louisiana earlier this year were TWO CANISTERS OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL , still unrecovered. (And nuclear industry spokesmen say the public needn't worry about radioactive elements getting into the wrong hands.) . . . . Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ordered all U.S. atomic power plants to hire additional guards install surveillance gear, and take other new MEASURES TO THWART ARMED SABOTAGE . Estimated cost per plant: $2 million . . . . The Energy Research and Development Administration wants to spend $400,000 helping homeowners, builders, and engineers develop new designs for PASSIVE AND HYBRID SOLAR HEATING SYSTEMS (i.e., systems that employ few or no automatic controls, fans, or pumps). To get in on the action, write the ERDA in Washington, D.C. 20545 and ask for Program Research and Development Announcement EG-77-D-29-005 . . . . Shell Oil Company's plans to drill for 280 million barrels of oil near Cortez, Colorado may imperil 3,000 SENSITIVE ARCHEOLOGICAL SITES (Anasazi Indian ruins) in the area. Shell says, however, that it won't give the project the final go-ahead until feasibility studies are complete in 1980 . . . . The folks at Dodge Products, Box 19781, Houston, Tex. 77024 have developed (and are now marketing) a HAND-HELD SOLAR METER capable of measuring the intensity of incident sunlight with a degree of accuracy paralleling that of expensive laboratory pyranometers. Price of the DP Model 776 Portable Solar Meter is $49.50, FOB Houston.
|
|
|
|