Research Project ( part 2)

After hearing David Maywhoor's comments regarding the biomass energy production, I began to research more of the negative aspects that I had skipped over previously. I was under the impression that biomass and biofuels were a possible source of alternative energy. Many of the sources that I have come across so far in my search have appeared to be fairly good sources that discussed the negative and positive aspects of the biomass energy. I realize that David has a very strong mindset when it comes to using the trees as a fuels source , since he has seen the devastation and destruction that the clear cutting has caused. I still believe that there is still the possibility to use harvest the tree and other crops in a manner that is efficient and economical. The hardest part of the whole “Alternative Energy” movement is to address all of the negative aspects that each source brings to the table. One of the negative aspects that the Biomass energy has is that in the case of biofuels the production of the numerous forms of ethanol cause an increase demand for corn which drives the price of corn up. This is just one of the negative aspects I will have to address during my research. I have found the website for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory very useful in addressing some the technologies and studies that have been done regarding the Biomass energy. As an engineer I enjoy reading the technological theories that are addressed in their site, it makes logical sense to use materiak that we can grown in the US as a source for fuel. One of these specific theories in this site talkes bout creating “Bioefinerys” , the article describes them as “A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power, and chemicals from biomass. The biorefinery concept is analogous to today's petroleum refineries, which produce multiple fuels and products from petroleum. Industrial biorefineries have been identified as the most promising route to the creation of a new domestic biobased industry”. I believe that the only way that we can replace the coal and oil as our main sources of energy is to try to develop new forms such a s the Biofuels. Even if the biofuels are not the final and only solution maybe the research that was done in their creation can be applied to creating a new fuel source never before though of. This current energy situation is not going to fix it self it is up to us to try all possible solutions until we find something that will sustain us in te same manner that coal and oil have in the last hundred years.

David Maywhoor

I found David Maywhoor ‘s presentation was very eye opening. I thought it was very interesting when he was talking about the gas lines that are ran throughout the Mohican State Park since I have been camping and fishing there many times. I had always noticed the pump access points but I was never aware of the problems that they were causing the forest by breaking it into segments. David’s information about biomass energy should prove very useful in my own research paper. I also found his firsthand account of the erosion caused by clear cutting the hill sides very informative. He also had a lot of cool pictures to show, which is often very helpful to “paint the picture” of what is going on with the forest in Ohio right now.

Research Project

I have decided to do my research on using biomass as a form of alternative energy. I have already found a significant amount of information regarding biomass and biofuels as energy sources. There are many different types of biomass energy resources such as trees, grass, crops, industrial and agricultural waste. The most common way to harness the energy from biomass is to burn it to make heat , steam and electricity. This process has been done for thousands of years and is still a viable source of energy.
In my research paper I would like to explore the different methods of creating and obtaining the material that are used as biomass fuel. I will discuss the way in which the different biomass are converted to obtain energy from them. I have also had some first hand experience seeing at least one aspect of this biomass fuel here in Athens. There is a company on Mill Street called Sunflower that develops Free-piston sterling engines. I was lucky enough to get a tour of this company and got to see a demonstration of a free-piston sterling engine that was fueled by wood pellets. This pump was designed to be able to be fueled by any type of combustible material such as corn husk. Seeing this engine run was what sparked my interest into the use of biomass .
I believe that we will be able to use biomass to slowly replace or cut down on the use of coal for electricity production. One approach that was discussed in one of the articles that I read, was the to burn the biomass along with the coal in a process referred to as “co-firing”. This process would mean that we could replace a portion of the coal with the biomass and still produce the same amount of energy as the coal only process.
I am still not sure what my main focus will be in this paper since there are a few different different routes that I can go. I am leaning toward doing a summary of the how biomass energy works from production to energy conversion. I will also be able to tie this theme of the need for alternative energy sources as talked about in Lost Mountain.

Lost Mountain Part 3

In the foreword of the book Wendell Berry discussed the "rational" and the "sympathetic" mind. Theses two mindsets are very basic and therefore are fairly easy to understand. The "rational" mindset is one that is based on a single short term goal with little to no consideration of the negative effects. It is based off the feelings of a single person whereas the "sympathetic" mind is looking at the both sides of the picture both negative and positive. The "sympathetic" mind is looking for a conclusion appropriate to balance the needs/wants between both sides.
Reece exhibits his own “sympathetic” mind when he describes the “methods of operation” for Leslie resources. He states “it takes a thousand years to build twelve inches of topsoil on these steep slopes .But it will only take the dozer driver a few hours to scrape it all away”(pg 186). He later states that this is “just one example how the true cost of coal is externalized onto the land and the people of Appalachia while absentee coal companies siphon off profits”(pg 186).On this page Reece shows his sympathetic mindset by relating the ideals of the coal company to the negative effect experienced by the Appalachian people form their actions.
A second example of the sympathetic mindset of Reece occurs when he is speaking about meeting with the three men from the Department of Natural Resources. Reese states “ There was a general sense of touchiness all around. I almost wanted to apologize to the regulators for putting them through this:I wanted to assure them that I was not a bad guy, ans wasn't out to make them look bad. This was one day when I actually held a degree of power and leverage against the leviathan industry, but I found that I wasn't much enjoying it.(219)” Reece describes that even though he has the power over these operators he does not feel good about having the possibility of exploiting their work. This is very different from the opposite mindset of the mine operators who exploit the people of Appalachia with little of no sympathy for the negative effects that the strip mining has on them.
In the the conclusion of the Lost Mountain on quote that really stuck out to me was “ That we now live in such a highly mechanized world, and that such an artificial environment is the source of much depression and violence among Homo Sapiens , is a theory that stretches from Alexis de Tocqueville to Thoreau to Paul Shepard to the Unabomber. We move from house to garage to car to work to mall to gym to house again with little regard to our ancestral homeland- ancient savannas at the edge of vast forest”(pg 241). I believe thats this statement is very true even for students in college. Most of us have our daily or weekly schedule thats shuffles us from class to class, building to building with little of no time spent outside the Athens City limits. I think it is very important for us to take time away from the city, cell phone, ipod, and computers. I think this goes along with the book's theme of how the increasing demand for coal for electricity production has led our society to look to unconventional ways of mining such a s strip mining. If we can all spend more free time outside doing things that don't require the use of electricity then we would decrease the demand, if only a small bit, of electricity.

FLOW

In the movie Flow I was again enlighten by many facts about the current water situation. I felt like it was very similar to the way the book Lost Mountain is written. In the movie many people were interviewed and asked about the water situation in their own regions. Many of the people that were interview were poorer people in rural areas just as in Lost Mountain. The movie also showed many interviews with the executives of the large water companies that have been around for a hundred plus years. These companies would come into these smaller communities and take over there water distribution centers and offer clean drinking water for prices that these people are not able to afford. The people are then forced to go down to over polluted streams and rivers to retrieve water. The way that these companies justified there action to charge these prices was that they were being compensated for their knowledge of the water distribution business since they have been at it for so many years. One thing that I found very shocking was the negative aspect that dams are portrayed as having in this movie. The World Bank would fund these new dam projects which would displace 100k if not millions of people. The World Bank, just as the coal mining companies would promise compensation to the communities once the project was done but in the end gave nothing back to the people it displaced. The protection for the World Bank was so great that no one person could sue the company for not getting fairly compensated. I liked how the movie showed some of the cheaper ways that communities can filter their own water supply, like the UV purification system that can be managed and maintained by a single village member. Most of the movie was very eye opening and evoked many of the same emotions that the book has thus far. I would recommend this movie to anyone who would like to learn more about the current water situation.

LOST MOUNTAIN (85-162)

In the second section of Lost Mountain, Reece continues to speak to the local communities about the negative effects of the strip mining. In the chapter “what is a flying squirrel worth” Reece meets a Teacher named Jim Krupa who offers the following insight about the current situation. “with our levels of population and rates of consumption, it’s just a matter of time before we kill ourselves off, It’s not something I tell my freshman”. I found this very shocking yet believable given the facts for Reece thus far in the book.
I found a quote that reminded me of information that I had learned in history classes in grade school. The quote was spoken by Harry Cauldill speaking about the coal companies communities, “Though he might revert on occasion to his ancestral agriculture, he would never again free himself from dependence upon his new war lords”. A humorous but riveting description that Reece gives about the “post mining” contour was “Post mining contour is flat as a dead man EKG. When I first looked at the map it seemed impossible”.
In the last chapter of this section we finally get to hear something positive. Reese describes the Ecovillage, which offers some hope. Waste is converted to clean water via plants and , and can be used in toilets and to for laundry, by plants. “Because what we think of as waste- plants think its food”. The Principle of the Ecovillage is to follow the laws of nature. The Ecovillage uses 75% less energy than normal residential neighborhood. I feel like Reece did a good job of ending his description of the Ecovillage with a powerful quote, “they have to understand the impacts and they have to understand the alternatives” . As an engineer I feel that this is the basic and most effective way of solving a problem such as the strip mining situation.

LOST MOUNTAIN (1-85)

In the first section of the book Lost Mountain we are introduced to the author Erik Reece and his pursuit to research and discover the true effects that strip mining has caused to Appalachia forest. His journey so far in this book has been very eye opening to me.
The first chapter of his book focuses on the iconic canary and how its meaning can be related to the current strip mining situation. The way that he has described the act of “tracking and observing” the bird can also be related to the “tracking and observing that going along with the Appalachian mountains that have remained untouched by the strip mining. He describes the disappearance of these birds when he says “Their silence like the Canary’s is also an indication of a much larger problem”. I believe that he is comparing the beauty of the bird to the beauty of the disappearing mountain tops.
The direct consequence to the human population is explained in grave detail when Reece visits with Teri Blanton. Reece takes a tour with Teri in her hometown of Dayhoit. Blanton’s first description of the negative effects of the coal begins with the slurry puddle that was right outside her trailer where he children waited for the bus stop. She called the highway department and they called the coal company and asked them to go clean it up. The coal company responded by driving a large coal truck around the street where she had lived in an effort to intimidate her. She later described how the coal company has poisoned all the wells that her town relied on for their water supply. She listed several people who had died as a result to this polluted water. This conversation was held at the White Star Cemetery where Blanton recalls burying many of her friends and family members. This was a grim realization of the magnitude of negative effects that this mine has on the people of this town.
Reece also described the shell game that the large mining companies play to get out of having to pay for restoring the land after they have completed the mining process. The opposition to this is displayed when Reece talks about Uncle Dan Gibson and how he was defending his step son’s land from being dug up to mine coal. Gibson met the bulldozer operators with a rifle and told them to stop or he would shoot. Gibson was taking to jail by the sheriff. He along with other became icons of the Citizens Coal Council that formed to combat the coal mining industry and try to stop the continuation of this destructive mining.
After reading this first section of the book I believe that the author does a fairly good job giving the readers a detailed description of what he has seen during his time on Lost Mountain. He seems to just tell the story without putting on a biased twist that is often seen in the media. This first section of the book has been a very informative description of the mining process and its negative effects.

clean coal

On the “this is reality” site the main points that the make regarding the “clean coal” focuses mainly on the amount of time and money spent on clean coal technology without any new cleaner coal plants being built. On the “America’s Power” website the main facts that are present include the “77 % cleaner in terms of emissions per unit of energy produced”. This website is stating that they the coal industry has improved the efficiency of there plants by a drastic amount. This later of the two sites has more of an initial appeal to me.

After analyzing both websites I believe that the coal industry has much more at stake since they are receiving flak from main stream media for being an unclean industry. The clean coal technology can be simplified the following way “ increasing energy output while at the same time decreasing energy input” . The future of this technology is to further increase the efficiency of these plants while investing in other renewable resources such as solar and wind power. Many people do not understand the true challenges that have to be addressed when a major change in infrastructure is implemented. It not as easy as just getting rid of every coal fired power plant and replacing it with wind or solar power.

The audiences for the “this is reality” website include the main stream media who might not have good understanding of the coal technology. The audience for the “America Power” website include people who work in the industry and truly understand how a coal plant operates along with the infrastructure that is a vital part of.

The “this is reality” website is sponsored by climate control groups, wildlife protection groups, and conservative voter groups. The “America’s Power” website is sponsored by the power companies that operate and control the coal fired power plants. The ethos for these groups appears to be more prominent for the “America’s Power” website since the facts that they present are more scientific and relevant than the theoretical ideas that are expressed on the “this is reality site”

The emotion appeal that is used in the “this is reality” website include the idea that it “will be too late if we do not act before 2012” . This pathos would be listed as a fear to not having control over out environment. The emotion that is represented by the “America Power” website is one that lets the reader know that steps have been made to improve the overall efficiency of the coal power plants.

The visual representations of both sites are very different. The “this is reality” site uses the visual expression of a canary to represent the “dirty” coal industry. The bird falling over and dying is a very strong visual effect that will defiantly grab the attention of the reader. The “America Power” website uses pictures of scientific graphs of data along with pictures of working class people. This is used to appeal to the science-based community that uses data and other numerical values to base their opinions off of.

I found the “Americas Power” website to be more persuasive because it uses data, graphs, and numerical values to represent the facts. This is much more relevant than the theoretical ideas that are represented by the other website.

matt proctor intro post

My name is Matt Proctor. I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. I am currently a senior Mechanical Engineering student. My hobbies include fishing, camping, computers, listening to music, and playing video games.