Also some technologies e. Someone building in Key West, Florida, may not find this helpful except in its building principles. In nonforested areas, it would be appropriate to look for readily available products such as stone or earth. Solar cookers, which are good for many, may not be the best choice for people who eat mainly fried foods whose preparation requires intense heat.
Thus the applicability is more limited in some cultures than in others because of the way food is prepared. And some groups may regard individual practices as outside their religious or cultural traditions. Choosing what technology, or technologies, to adopt is perhaps more difficult than one might realize.
People know whether they can undertake to use a specific technology based on their limited talents and physical condition. Saying no to personal use of such technologies as bikes, compost toilets, or solar greenhouses may have a good basis that all respect. The difficulty arises when, for example, a person decides on a passive solar design, only to realize after the shelter is finished that an attached solar greenhouse might have been a better choice, one that would have provided more useful horticultural space and an equal amount of solar heating during the winter months.
While there is a certain relativism to such judgments, all are subject to critical analysis by the person and the larger community. Introduction O 19 Good for Some Some appropriate technologies could meet the four criteria mentioned above—that is, they could be affordable, Earthfriendly, community enhancing, and people-friendly—and yet not be recommended for people in the eastern United States regional specificity , nor be part of present-day American culture because of practical considerations, nor be generally applicable for individuals due to limited resources, markets, current product use, or other circumstances.
Examples of technology appropriate for one region being misapplied in another are nowhere more apparent than in the section on shelter. Part of the problem is the standardization of home building in this country without regard to ecological and safety aspects. What is good for Alaska is sometimes alleged to be good for Florida. Straw-bale housing offers an excellent example of bioregional specificity. They selected their building materials locally and chose designs for performance, availability, and durability in that bioregion. The materials were close at hand; the climate was suitably dry, and the mean relative humidity was quite low.
The straw-bale shelter was and still is appropriate there, as it is across the West, except in the temperate rain forest in the Pacific Northwest. It is particularly appropriate in central California, where highly 20 O Introduction durable rice straw is often burned as a waste material, thus contributing to air pollution. An examination of a mean relative humidity map of this country quickly reveals that this nation has varied humidity. If potential builders would respect the wisdom of local people and ask about using straw as a building material in the eastern United States, they would get the response about straw-bale housing given to me by an old farmer: The straw-bale structure presumes low humidity, for the straw bale walls are meant to breathe, and this air can add moisture to the straw.
In zones where the relative humidity is 66 to 75 percent, it is possible for the moisture content of the straw to creep up to 25 percent or higher. Some easterners who live in straw-bale dwellings are already making complaints at this time. Is this so-called appropriate dwelling becoming an example of moldy indoor housing, the twenty-first-century equivalent of asbestos contamination? In more than half of the eastern United States, straw is not easily procured—but the same could be said of logs. Is it worthwhile importing straw bales, which are 24 inches thick, when every critical inch of walls requires that much more floor space and roofing?
Is it worth following a national fad when people could be harmed in the process? Importing a nonnative material is less ecologically desirable than importing far more efficient and more spatially economical recycled cellulose or other forms of insulation that cause fewer potential health problems.
Introduction O 21 Cultural specificity. Methane, the major component of natural gas, is well known as a relatively clean energy source, but while global resources are still quite substantial, those that are available for consumption by an energy-hungry population are limited. Liquefying natural gas from distant sources and transporting it in ocean vessels is dangerous, even when such ships are docked away from populated areas. But methane is also found closer to home. Incomplete anaerobic decomposition, as in wetlands or landfills, results in some methane generation. However, aerobic decomposition, as in a composting toilet with good airflow, leads to conversion to nutrient-rich, pathogen-free soil amendments, carbon dioxide, and water, and no methane is generated see chapter Methane is part of the normal natural cycles of life, and so it is tempting to capture it wherever possible and burn it as a fuel.
Human and animal waste can be collected and processed through anaerobic digestion of recycled wastes. In some countries, such as India and China, both residential and farm wastes are recycled; in other instances, only animal wastes are used. Residential-scale biogas applications are harder, or impossible, to find in the United States, where natural gas has generally been relatively cheap, although prices have recently begun to soar.
Methane gas is contaminated and of lower fuel value, manure is not easily collected, and the labor-intensity of such processing is often beyond the normal course of activity. Where fuel is in short supply and manure is available in higher concentrations, such as in a feedlot or chicken house near a residence or place of business, there is a greater incentive to digest the wastes into methane. In moderate- to large-sized farms with confined livestock and operating liquid-manure handling systems, the possibility of converting wastes to methane is greater.
Certainly odors remain a contentious issue. Culturally, even with unforeseen incentives, it is extremely doubtful that Americans will choose to make methane from their waste products. This is especially true since the amount of fuel produced per household is relatively negligible and the 22 O Introduction wastes collected could be more easily recycled via a composting toilet and returned as a soil amendment to the garden. Very few if any Americans could be persuaded to adopt this methanegenerating practice in or near their homes. It would be a cultural stretch for many to accept household-scale biogas digesters.
Having said this, what about medium-scale or community methane digestion? During the s, some dairies and hog farms received grants from the federal government to develop methane collection systems on a moderate scale. Over time such mediumrange systems proved costly and difficult to operate without subsidies; they require maintenance by farmers who are already trying to keep marginal operations going and who have only limited labor available.
In addition, the relatively small amount of methane generated makes the economics difficult to justify. In contrast, previously existing municipal solid waste landfills built according to U. Environmental Protection Agency specifications have generated considerable amounts of methane gas, which, while somewhat impure, can be processed to help generate electricity.
EPA estimates that landfills could produce enough electricity to power 1 million homes nationwide. With conservation and efficiency improvements and renewable energy systems installed at the residential level, perhaps ten times the number of homes could benefit from methane-generated electricity. About five hundred landfill operations are currently being tapped for methane, but in many cases such wasteful disposal practices are used to eviscerate source-reduction efforts, reuse, repair, recycling, and composting opportunities. However, to use all resources mindfully, existing landfills need not flare off the dangerous accumulations of methane.
Since we are already burdened by too many landfills, it is far better to use the methane they generate to produce electricity. With many communities already setting their sights on zero waste, we have hopefully evolved beyond the need to site new landfills using the feeble excuse that they would be acceptable for methane generation.
Introduction O 23 On a larger scale, methane is currently collected in coal mines, using a waste by-product of the mining operation to produce a fuel that is less polluting than coal. This may be a proper industrial application, but it goes beyond the limits of this book, which concentrates on appropriate technology practices for individuals or communities. A second large-scale methane generation source could be large-scale animal feedlots.
This may be analogous to organizing a blackberry cooperative using briars growing on strip-mined lands. Large feedlots are found especially in the Midwest and on the Great Plains. Many environmentalists consider them abominations because of the noxious odors, potential surface- and groundwater contamination, and the poor treatment of livestock. These environmentalists think that such feedlots should be eliminated even if some reuse of manure is possible with proper carbon-nitrogen balancing it can be recycled as compost. These opponents tell us that grass-fed, free-range livestock produce healthier and higher-quality animal products.
But the feedlots could take advantage of economies of scale in using the methane; given the circumstances, methane generation may prove better than wasting the material. Shifting our meat production to free-range, antibiotic-free, non—bovine growth hormone BGH livestock would diminish methane-generation possibilities.
However, under current conditions, composting the manure would still be a beneficial reuse.
Healing Appalachia Sustainable Living Through Appropriate Technology
Large-scale biodigestion is another example of something that is culturally inappropriate on a small scale but that could be appropriate on a large scale. Much discarded organic material generated in wood-, food-, feed-, and fiber-processing facilities can provide feedstock for biodigestion. Where the biogas has an effective end use, perhaps both as process heat and cogeneration for electric production, and the residue can also be used as an organic soil amendment, it may be quite suitable to turn these wastes into a usable fuel.
Fuels may come from a variety of agricultural products or by-products, and the popularity of these alternative fuels is increasing as gasoline and diesel fuel prices rise, taking a larger bite out of family and institutional budgets. As fuel prices increase, there is a noticeable effort to take combustible waste materials or virgin materials with limited markets and use these as fuels in our traditional internal combustion engines.
A number of questions arise. What about using waste materials from industrial deep fryers in potato-processing plants, snack-food factories, and restaurants for fuel for space heating or for running vehicles? Certainly disposal of waste vegetable oil is bothersome for restaurants, and green technologists who collect, filter, and use the material as a biofuel for vehicles in their communities are to be commended. They save money, recycle a waste commodity, and use a cleanerburning fuel than petrodiesel.
While this small-scale practice may be personally appropriate, it is especially so when the waste oil is destined for disposal in a landfill or burning in an incinerator. Since the use of waste vegetable oil for animal feeds has been banned in Europe since , the question must be raised why the United States has neglected to address this issue. The highest beneficial use or reuse of a resource—beyond just a technological or resource management issue—must also become an ethical issue.
In some areas, several factors could make some of these technologies practical for individuals if not for larger-scale use. These factors include the lack of waste vegetable oil recycling centers; degree of contamination of the waste oil; insufficient quantity of materials in a given community; and willingness, or lack thereof, of the fuel user to spend limited time and resources recycling materials.
The use of biofuels can be an important strategy for transitioning to the use of solar electric vehicles powered through solar charging stations see chapter However, the pedagogical value of recycling is crucially important even when the practice has limitations. Whether something is appropriate for an individual cannot be judged categorically from a distance but must be determined by the judgments of individual technologists in the context of specific communities.
Another alternative fuel that raises questions is ethanol. Used for years to enhance octane ratings, ethanol can be made from crops such as corn, whose cultivation requires the consumption of a great deal of petroleum products, as well as from cellulosic feedstocks, biomass wastes, native fast-growing plants like switchgrass, and short-rotation woody crops like poplar trees.
Because recent legislation allows generous federal subsidies for ethanol generation as an alternative fuel source, we need a definitive analysis of total resource gain and loss, including energy output gained as well as soil depletion and use of nonrenewable fuels for growing, gathering, and processing the ethanol. Patzek of Berkeley on one side and a sizable contingent of the agricultural scientific community on the other. Pimentel and Patzek reported that producing biofuel requires more energy than it supplies in the form of ethanol.
They found, for example, that producing ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than it generates, and ethanol from soybeans requires 27 percent more energy to produce than it provides. See the discussion of transportation chapter 24 for other alternatives. In Appalachia, only wood waste products are major biofuel sources, since large-scale agricultural operations are somewhat limited. However, some biological waste products may be areas of interest in this region, given recent lucrative incentives. Thus to some degree the controversy is somewhat academic for Appalachia.
The chapters cover the following topics: One can quibble about the way we have chosen to cut the pie here; certainly some applications would fit easily within more than one category. We have tried to assist the reader by providing ample cross-references. Many of my clients have environmental concerns as a major motivation.
Photovoltaic panels are the cleanest electricity generators that can be used almost anywhere. They offer a practical alternative to coal-generated electricity and the ravages associated with coal mining. Other chapters deal with such topics as passive solar heating of residences, greenhouses and other seasonal extenders, heating water and cooking, and solar-charged electric cars. The office system was intended to be simply a solar charging station for the ASPI electric car, but we soon realized that it could also furnish electricity to run the office.
This utility intertied system allows excess solar- 28 O Healing Appalachia Fig. A system such as this makes net metering possible. The importance of electricity in the modern world cannot be overemphasized—and the massive Northeast blackout in the summer of underscored that fact. But must electricity be generated by environmentally flawed fossil-fueled or nuclearfueled power plants in a world beset with global warming partly caused by power plant emissions and with unsolved nuclear waste problems?
Solar, wind energy, and microhydropower systems offer clean, renewable sources of electricity. These technologies can be used at the residential level, but at some financial cost. Two movements seem to be occurring in the complex PV field: Decentralizing Solar Photovoltaics O 29 some generating sources while retaining transmission lines and utility grids for the welfare of a larger community challenges basic concepts of appropriate technology as self-sustaining independent systems apart from the larger world community.
Solar PV can offer independence from the electric grid, but it becomes more economical when interconnected with the modern world. Perhaps we can join the best aspects of self-sufficiency and interdependence in a balanced way. AstroPower of Delaware was for years a leading producer of solar cells and modules made totally in the United States. They offered single-crystal , , and watt modules with thirtysix series-connected cells and tempered glass glazing with aluminum frame and weather-tight junction box.
The largest module came with a twenty-year warranty. Hopes were running high that these larger workhorse types of PV generating modules would become even more affordable in the near future when the company faced financial problems, was delisted from the NASDAQ in , and filed for bankruptcy.
AstroPower was purchased in by General Electric GE Energy , which is making a commitment to renewable energy following its purchase of Enron Wind in Solar shingles are also available. Recently attention has focused on companies such as Uni-Solar a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. It is anticipated that prices will decline for both. Economies of scale ought to apply to both technologies in the near future as solar growth in was up by 15 percent. Lead connection wires are on the back side, ensuring that electric connections are made in an attic vaulted or cathedral ceilings would present some difficulties.
Other kinds of thin-film PV laminates that can be bonded directly onto standing-seam roofing panels come in inch-wide peel-and-stick rolls and can be cut to length. Unbreakable thinfilm PV is produced using amorphous silicon, encapsulated in Teflon and other polymers. In contrast to crystalline PV modules, there is no need for specially designed racks of heavy, expensive glazing. These thin-film sheets demonstrate improved performance in high temperatures and in partly shaded conditions. They also require one one-hundredth the silicon, which indicates that thin-film PV should become less expensive than crystalline PV as production capacity expands over the next several years.
Today, PV systems are found in various parts of the country, especially in the sunny Southwest. The same could be said of Appalachia. Some questions await the experience coming from long-term use; they include the ease of repair, vulnerability to damage from rocks or storms, and the expertise needed to install and maintain these solar shingles. However, conventional PV modules have had over thirty years of operational testing in realworld conditions and have performed with greater-than-anticipated efficiency and durability.
Although much attention is given to the modules, many other aspects of the PV system demand expertise in installation. Besides deep-cycle batteries, the system must be equipped with circuit breaker disconnects for safety as defined by the National Electric Code. If storage batteries are part of the system, they need charge controllers to keep batteries from overcharging. The system could be set up to divert excess electricity to water- or Solar Photovoltaics O 31 air-heating elements.
An inverter is needed to convert low-voltage direct current DC to the volt alternating current AC used by typical American household appliances and office equipment. Many of these functions can now be performed by the easyto-install MicroSine a grid tie inverter fitted on the back of a solar PV panel, which can match the type of electricity flowing though the electric utility grid. Batteries are thus not needed, but the PV electricity ceases if the grid breaks down for any reason. Commercially produced energy is expensive, and conservation measures expand the available quantity of electricity and reduce the need for constructing new generating capacity.
Solargenerated electricity should not be used to operate appliances, such as hot plates or hair dryers, that use resistance elements, because such appliances draw more electricity than most modestsized solar systems can make available at a given time. Few people realize that an office copier or clothes dryer uses resistance heating and is an energy-costly device. We changed all of our overhead and other small lighting units to fluorescent lights, which required abandoning some dimmer systems, giving us an equal amount of luminescence at about one-fifth of the energy demand.
And the resulting lighting was softer and easier on the eyes. Compact Fluorescents Even in the absence of a PV system, compact fluorescents can conserve electricity. Unfortunately, traditional incandescent bulbs are cheap, so the general public has not moved rapidly in the direction of commercially available lightweight compact fluorescent lights CFLs. CFLs are four times more efficient, use 50—80 percent less energy, and last up to ten times longer than incandescents.
Though initially more costly than incandescent bulbs, the CFLs will save money in the long run. The new fluorescents attach directly to light sockets, do not require ballast systems, last much longer, are more sturdily constructed and break less easily than older models of compacts, and are decreasing in price because of increased demand. If an individual is going to undertake only one energy-conserving step, that step should be to replace all lighting with more energy-efficient systems. Other Lighting Options This subfield is as complex as PV generating equipment, mainly because changes are occurring rapidly.
Several outlets now offer a host of energy-efficient lighting accessories, especially volt DC options; indoor fluorescent lighting of all sizes and shapes; variable-speed switches; Christmas tree and other interior decorative lights; and bullet or halogen lights for bedroom, workshop, or kitchen.
The available list of energy-efficient items goes beyond the interior and includes a variety of sensor lights, street- Solar Photovoltaics O 33 lights, and outdoor path markers with solar-charged batteries.
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With time, these options expand, prices drop, and lightbulb lifetimes are extended. Perhaps the best-known PV appliance outside of lighting fixtures is the solar fan. Solar fans come in various sizes and are designed for specific purposes. A passive-solarcooled home may need such fans, especially to fill the structure with cool early morning air in the summer.
The compost toilet can be equipped with a PV unit that has no storage but runs only during the daytime, which is sufficient for a unit that is moderately used. The use of PVs is particularly beneficial in parts of the world where irrigation water is of critical importance for producing food and accessing uncontaminated drinking water. The units are a combination of traditional pumps with PV panels and battery-storage systems.
If water pumping does not have to be continuous, as in watering livestock or occasionally irrigating fields, costly battery storage systems can be omitted and PVs can directly run the pumps during daylight hours. The PV sources can be mobile units, such as the one shown in figure 1. Solar water fountain pumps. Interior and exterior water fountains and waterfalls can be more than merely ornamental.
They can have therapeutic effects on shut-ins, senior citizens, and hospital patients. Joseph Campbell mentions the sound of flowing water as being one of the primitive sounds that reminds us of our connection to all life forms in the living 34 O Healing Appalachia environment. If exterior displays are operated only in daylight hours, they require no costly battery storage systems.
Account Options
Illuminated welcome signs that run on solar power are an excellent way to promote solar use. For some all-night signs, storage batteries are needed; for limited use, less storage is needed and the signs can be turned on or off by light-sensitive timers. Solar food drying is an economic and efficient way to preserve food see chapter 7.
Portable solar generators such as this one can be used to power solar water pumps, power tools, and appliances. Solar Photovoltaics O 35 dryers that run on electricity have been available for years, and PV-powered fans for such systems can be obtained. Solar-powered cooling equipment is of critical importance in remote hospitals and clinics where medicines must be kept refrigerated. High-efficiency commercial cooling units are costly, but the urgency of the need justifies the investment. Small units with limited capacities are now available for several hundred dollars.
Solar communication and computer equipment. Laptop adapters and other solar-powered computer systems are commercially available. Sophisticated signals for communication and transportation highways, ships, railroads, and airplanes are now commonly operated using PV energy sources and have proved very dependable.
One use of solar energy often omitted in surveys is that of electric fencing to keep livestock from wandering. Often fences are erected on terrain inaccessible to public utilities and depend on PV-generated electricity to be effective. Entertainment and portable equipment.
Solar is used in an endless variety of electronic devices. Some of these solarpowered devices are commercially available. A number of solar catalogs see Resources reflect the rapid expansion of this field. Solar enthusiasts are encouraged to attend regional solar energy fairs to acquaint themselves with the latest innovations. NET METERING Many states have systems in place allowing electricity generated from solar, wind, microhydropower, or other forms of renewable 36 O Healing Appalachia energy to be fed back into the grid either at either wholesale or retail electricity prices.
This is especially advantageous for the independent power generator, since it does not demand an array of costly lead-acid or other deep-cycle storage batteries, which are normally required to store surplus solar energy as chemical energy for use when the sun is not shining. While viewing the older utility meter with its circulating wheel under glass cover on sunny days, ASPI staff and visitors could see the wheel tottering as it moved from running forward to running backward.
When a standby copier or computers were turned off, the amount of savings could be seen. The relationship between appliance use and conservation can be learned almost as graphically from interactive computer systems. The ASPI solar automobile charging station has been integrated into the office energy supply and into the utility grid. But utility linemen must be informed about alternative systems, since the small producer is actually generating electricity during normal daylight working hours and linemen could be electrocuted if they thought all power sources were turned off. And in any event, yielding to the temptation is not a way to change the practices of a central supplier of electricity.
Solar Photovoltaics O 37 Utilities get promotional benefit from their sensitivity to small energy producers, but the ultimate benefit to utilities is that during hot summers when loads peak due to increased use of air-conditioning units, individual solar producers are most able to feed back electricity. Generally, states that produce fossil fuels are more reluctant than nonproducing states to encourage federally directed net metering procedures through their respective power commissions.
Other individuals and groups are now joining, and gradually other utilities will be encouraged to start the long journey from generator of electricity to community service provider. Photovoltaics and other renewable energy systems will help change the nature of energy distribution in the coming decades. The energy crisis of the seventies got me started looking at alternative energy, and I experimented with natural gas as a motor fuel, which I hoped to replace with landfill-produced methane. I often visited the mountains of northern Georgia and western North Carolina and began to read all I could about microhydroelectric power generation, especially after seeing several high-head systems in use by the utilities in Jackson and Macon counties in North Carolina.
There was major interest in the eighties. As a result of the more feasible studies my company, Mountain Water Power Systems, installed about a half dozen smaller systems for others. Interest has been off and on since then. Efficiency has been an issue on some of the smaller sites. It is hard to obtain the published numbers since you do not usually have the engineering budget to design and build one-of-a-kind systems so off-the-shelf components must be used. Individuals are sometimes unwilling to make the lifestyle changes that alternative energy requires.
Even with 10 kW, my family found it hard to make adjustments when there were three small children and both of us worked outside the Microhydropower O 39 home. You want to turn on the stove, start a load of clothes, and take a shower when you get home! There is a great deal of interest lately with the cost of energy, but the public is unwilling to spend a lot of money in return for a small amount of energy compared to what they are used to. Maintenance is a concern for some: Erosion of the runner due to sand from flooding is a maintenance item I have to deal with, but to me it is worth it.
With the cost of gasoline most of the alternative energy interest now is in transportation, but there might be a fit with electric cars. Maybe a hybrid modified for plug-in use might be charged by a hydroelectric plant. Recent developments in electronics and batteries might be leading to a more efficient, trouble-free generation in the future. Richard Hotaling, engineer, Mountain Water Power Systems, North Carolina From earliest times, diverting water for irrigation allowed indigenous peoples to expand food growing into drier areas.
Flowing water has been tapped for power for grinding grain and later for mechanical uses such as sawmills. As Norman Brown notes in his book Renewable Energy Resources and Rural Applications in the Developing World, the history of small-scale hydropower development can provide many useful ideas on how to aid rural areas of developing countries with water power potential to better provide for their basic needs. In the beginning, waterwheels were able to convert the flow of water into mechanical energy; later the small turbine increased the amount of power that could be generated at a given site.
In the middle of the nineteenth century in the rural areas of the United States blacksmiths and foundrymen began to produce water turbines based on the original French models, creating extremely profitable businesses. Many of the newly designed turbines became known by the names of the American innovators, 40 O Healing Appalachia such as Francis, Kaplan, and Pelton.
The mills that were powered by these water turbines showed the potential for rural industry based on decentralized power sources. There were woolen, cotton, flax and linen mills;. Geological Survey stream-flow data and computing elevation differentials determined that the mountain counties in western North Carolina could become net exporters of electricity by simply tapping the potential microhydropower sites that could generate between 5 kW and kW of electricity. This estimate did not include systems that could generate more than kW, which would be considered small hydro.
Nor did it include sites such as the 3. Numerous other productive sites of less than 5 kW can be found across the mountains—a virtually untapped renewable resource that could help create the energy needed to develop a robust and vibrant bioregional economy. If a site has sufficient flow, measured in cubic feet per second or gallons per second, along with enough head, a project can be pursued. A typical system is illustrated in figure 2. With the steep elevations in the mountains, high-head, lowflow microhydro systems utilizing impulse turbines such as Pelton wheels have become very popular.
From there the water flows into the penstock that will channel the water under pressure to the turbine in the powerhouse, which ideally is located near the point of end use or near a utility grid intertie. As the water flows, the turbine turns a generator to produce electricity.
All of the headworks need to be carefully designed and constructed with highly durable materials, such as steel-reinforced concrete, to withstand hundred-year or greater frequency rains and flood conditions. Typical microhydroelectric system Microhydropower O 43 channel so that it is not washed out during intense storms and floods. The settling basin allows abrasive soil particles, grit, or sand to settle out so that they do not abrade the metal of the runner or turbine.
The penstock can be made from steel or smooth-walled polyethylene or PVC pipe to reduce friction losses that would otherwise impair the overall efficiency of the system. CIVIL WORKS Although, compared to larger systems, microhydro systems do not typically require extensive civil works, the work that is required must be done with careful attention to detail. The major tasks may include building the diversion weir or dam, building the forebay, installing the penstock, and building the powerhouse.
Building the Diversion Weir or Dam Small diversion dams can be built out of locally available materials—logs, stones, or steel-reinforced concrete. The purpose of the small diversion dam is to pool up enough water so that it may be channeled into the forebay or settling basin before entering the mouth of the penstock pipe.
These diversions do not normally have to exceed a height of 3 or 4 feet. Often these small diversion pools can be multifunctional and serve as sources for irrigation, fish farming, watering of livestock, fire protection, or even a cool and refreshing swimming hole. In the construction of the diversion, careful attention must be given to making sure that water will not undermine or circumvent the dam. Also provisions should be made for a spillway across the top and on the downstream side of the dam so that these areas will not be subject to the eroding action of the flowing water.
Effective spillway designs can include local rock and concrete.
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Even cattle grazing on pastureland above an intake structure can create erosion, and sediment can wash into the creek. Grit can cause unwanted abrasion on the penstock, nozzle, and turbine buckets and reduce their life expectancy. The trash rack will prevent larger debris such as rocks, tree branches, and leaves from approaching the penstock and should be designed so that it can be as selfcleaning as possible. A steel rake can sometimes come in handy for removing stubborn trash. In larger streams, it is probably a good idea to install a log boom just above and to the stream side of the trash rack and total forebay.
This log or series of linked logs is fastened either to a mooring in earth or to a tree and floats parallel to the stream. It is able to deflect any large branches or tree sections, which might do considerable damage to the intake structure. Installing the Penstock Polyethylene or PVC pipe is generally recommended for use as a penstock because of its smooth bore and general availability, although if salvaged steel pipe is available, it is also a durable choice.
Where the penstock exits the intake structure, care should be taken to ensure that the pipe is directed out of the streambed proper as soon as possible to protect the pipe from damage by boulders or any other heavy debris carried by the stream in high flows. To protect the pipe against collapsing in upon itself if the intake is blocked with trash, a small-diameter vent pipe should be installed off the first section of pipe to leave the headworks so that air can be drawn into the penstock to keep it from imploding.
The penstock can be run on top of the ground or Microhydropower O 45 buried; the buried pipe would be much less susceptible to damage from falling trees, vandalism, or subfreezing weather. Angle bends of 45 degrees or greater in the penstock should be avoided because of friction losses and the undue stress they put on the pipe. Dips in the run of the penstock should likewise be avoided because of the possibility of silt accumulation and the danger that the pipes will freeze if the penstock is drained for winter repairs.
Building the Powerhouse The powerhouse requires a solid foundation to support the turbine and generator set, especially with the amount of thrust that is applied to the turbine through the nozzle from the high-velocity jet of water. Sufficient room in the powerhouse should also be designated for the installation of electrical equipment.
Although the initial capital investment is somewhat high, the equipment is highly durable and does not require frequent installation of replacement parts. As with any renewable energy system, the owner becomes more and more mindful of the overall amount of electricity that can be generated and consumed, and the most energy-efficient 46 O Healing Appalachia Fig.
Pelton wheel turbine and generator set for the microhydropower system at Long Branch appliances and lighting become essential, as does practicing good conservation. Concerns with fish movement on larger-scale microhydro sites can be addressed with the installation of fish ladders, but microhydro development is usually done on streams that typically do not experience fish migration. As has been demonstrated in the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada, the design and development of components for microhydro systems can become a robust, decentralized industry that could provide highly skilled employment for many of the Appalachian youth who currently seek meaningful engineering or manufacturing careers away from the mountains.
Perhaps a way of stanching the hemorrhaging of our jobseeking, environmentally minded youth to other bioregions would be to launch a campaign, Microhydro in the Mountains: Going with the Flow! Perhaps we can learn to celebrate our nat- Microhydropower O 47 ural resources and culture of stewardship. And perhaps we can create a truly meaningful, ecologically conscious, and sustainable economy by combining our technological ingenuity with our deep instincts to care for the Earth.
We like to think of it as the sound of coal not being mined. In a state ravaged by mountaintop-removal mining, wind power is a practical, ethical, and Earth-friendly choice. Our area of West Virginia is visited every winter by substantial snow and ice storms, during which our neighbors may lose electric power for days at a time. Our alternative power system keeps right on going! We are delighted to be able to express our ecological values in the energy we use.
Healing Appalachia: Sustainable Living through Appropriate Technology
In the seventeenth century, England had ten thousand windmills of 10 to 20 horsepower each; in the same period, twelve thousand wind machines were operating in the Netherlands, primarily to reclaim inundated cropland. Many of these devices survived even after cheap rural electrification programs, and some workable relics remain today.
Even though the technology of these early devices and those of ancient Dutch windmills was notoriously ineffi1. Wind Power O 49 cient, the devices were reliable and satisfactory for the work that had to be done. Today, wind is the fastest-growing energy source in the world. Almost 11, megawatts MW of generating capacity was added in , an increase of Denmark, a longtime leader in wind use 3, MW total capacity , now obtains a greater portion of its energy from wind than the United States does from nuclear facilities. Germany, after taking a number of measures related to renewable energy, including imposing energy taxes on nonrenewable energy sources, has the largest installed wind power capacity in the world: Spain 10, MW total wind capacity in has set an updated goal of 20, MW in , or 15 percent of its national electricity consumption.
In the Netherlands, consumers want green power, and their expanding wind farms cannot meet demand. The European Union uses more than four times the wind power that we do in the United States and reached its goal of 40, MW five years ahead of time. Wind now accounts for 3 percent of total energy use on the Continent. Europeans recognize that wind has two advantages: Unlike nonrenewable energy sources, wind power generation entails no chemical emissions or major land disturbance.
And wind equipment today is far more efficient than its forebears of just a few years ago and has advanced from state-of-the-art devices with limits of kW each in to over three times that limit as of this writing.
Wholesale wind-generated electric rates are dropping rapidly; they are now as low as 3 cents a kilowatt hour and will be falling toward the 2-cent range in the coming years. Wind is now competitive with coal and other fossil fuels, and the utility companies seem to recognize this better than our national policymakers. In this regard wind is recognized worldwide as the fuel of the future.
Arthouros Zervos, president, European Renewable Energy Council Unlike the European nations that committed themselves to reaching Kyoto treaty goals, the United States is playing catch-up with renewable energy applications. Denmark and other European nations are relatively small, compact nations whose population centers are close to wind energy sources; the United States has vast, untapped wind potential in many regions and near some but not all population centers.
Transmission costs can be high to reach all population centers. That renewed interest in American wind power has gone big time is demonstrated by the large wind farms at Trent Mesa and Indian Mesa, Texas, and Altamont Pass where siting problems caused mortality in the golden eagle population and Palm Springs, California. These are not backyard operations by small farmers as in times past, but the work of major utility and energy companies, such as American Electric Power, which are now prepared to enter the wind-generating picture.
Appalachians and others are asking whether the wind must be tapped only by centralized electric utilities, or whether wind power, like decentralized solar energy systems, can serve individual households as well. Wind Power O 51 Wind power holds great promise in many parts of our nation, though not always where the heaviest concentrations of people are located.
The best wind power sites, classes 6 and 7, are found throughout the upper portion of the lower forty-eight states and in Alaska, along the northern Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the Gulf coast of Texas. However, the major concentration is in the sparsely populated Great Plains. While the greatest wind power potential is in less-populated places, a surprising number of population centers are near wind potential areas—San Francisco, Milwaukee, Omaha, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Dallas—Fort Worth, Minneapolis—St.
Paul, and San Jose. North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wyoming, Montana, and much of Wisconsin and Colorado 54 million people could meet all their energy needs with safe, nonpolluting wind energy without any major difficulty. The American Wind Association estimates that by some 5 to 10 percent of electric needs could be met by wind power, if a concerted effort is made using current technology.
But why set targets too low? Some experts estimate that the wind potential of just the states of North and South Dakota and Texas would be sufficient to power the current extravagant needs of the United States not taking into account transportation costs. However, people are now taking note that certain 2. Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Wind enthusiasts find that many of the higher elevations consistently have high-velocity winds and thus are well suited for electricity generation.
Wind experts say that 2 percent of the land area in the twenty-four western North Carolina counties , acres of ridgetop land is suitable for utility-scale wind projects; this potential area is halved if one excludes federal and state forests and parklands, viewshed buffers, and the Appalachian Trail.
Advances in technology and design, such as longer blades and better gearing mechanisms, now permit the use of lowervelocity wind. Because wind classes can vary greatly with slight differences in elevation on a mountainside, data must be collected to determine the exact location where a unit should be placed in steep mountainous terrain. Small- versus Large-Scale Applications Appropriate technologists generally follow the philosophy of E. Schumacher and think that smaller is better. With wind power, one could speak of large-scale electric generation and focus on flat plains or off-coast wind farms where suitable territory is plentiful.
Larger-scale Appalachian wind farms are feasible, as is evidenced by the Tennessee Valley Authority wind farm on Buffalo Mountain in central Tennessee figure 3. Others are being planned or developed in east-central West Virginia. Some people regard this as a detriment to the scenic beauty of the landscape, but they also doubly regret each new fossil fossil-fueled power plant with 3. Wind Power O 53 its added deterioration of Appalachian air quality. We must still emphasize small-scale wind facilities, whether of the traditional free-standing kind or the tilt-up varieties that are fastened with guy wires.
Small-scale wind power is coming to the region. Older wind enthusiasts speak respectfully about Marcellus Jacobs, the father of American wind-generated electricity. The small-scale machines he designed and built during a quarter of a century of manufacturing acquired an excellent reputation for durability, and some still operate on farms. They were generally placed near homes to minimize transmission-line losses and were hooked up to lead-acid batteries for charging and storing energy to provide electricity.
Today many of these less-efficient wind generators rust at old farmsteads and are being replaced by state- Fig. A TVA wind turbine in Tennessee 54 O Healing Appalachia of-the-art, aerodynamically engineered devices that can run at far lower wind speeds as low as 5 to 10 miles per hour. These newer varieties are constructed at ever-lower costs for use by both large and small systems. If the energy playing field were leveled through governmental incentives and tax breaks, wind would be quite competitive with nonrenewable sources of electricity at both the utility and the domestic scale.
Professor Dennis Scanlin at Appalachian State University at Boone, North Carolina, a solar and appropriate technology expert, is enthusiastic about wind power potential in Appalachia. Through funding from the U. Department of Energy, he is establishing testing towers in various choice locations in North Carolina and neighboring states.
He says that central Appalachia has far greater wind power potential and promise than had previously been thought. The results do not have to be directed only to commercial wind-generating facilities but may also apply equally to residential and small-business wind turbines, which are becoming more feasible over time. Appalachian Wind Concerns Appalachian wind sites may be on public land or on private land whose owners are wary of renewable energy development. Tower costs can escalate if the testing unit or wind generator tower must be brought in over difficult terrain.
Accessibility to the site is a major concern. Where land is under a conservation easement, variances may be obtained by persuading the trustees that wind power reduces fossil-fuel use and thus ultimately enhances the conservation value of the flora and especially the forests. Some of the best North Carolina wind sites class 7 are on portions of the Long Branch property under conservation easements, and a variance for renewable energy development is necessary.
The following are some barriers to development of wind power: Wind Power O 55 Aesthetic objections. These misinformed property holders wish to see what from their vantage point is an undisturbed landscape, no matter how much pollution has resulted from fossil-fueled plants and how degraded the forest landscape may be by acid deposition and ground-level pollution.
They may even try to masquerade as environmentalists, but their ultimate agenda is to preserve their own private domains while allowing the public commons to deteriorate. What about people affected elsewhere by coal strip-mining operations, fossil-fuel pollution, or high-level nuclear wastes? An environmental consciousness must reach beyond trying to preserve a private viewscape of a terminally ill forest ecosystem. Besides, wind farms can be attractive. Wind generators can be sited to minimize forest fragmentation caused by the construction of transmission lines and access roads in forested areas.
Closely related to threats to scenic landscape is the problem of bird kills at wind turbine sites. The early unfortunate siting of a wind farm at Altamont Pass, California, was done without ecological due diligence. The area, unbeknownst to wind developers at the time, was a prime nesting area for golden eagles. To its credit, the wind industry has been honest about its mistakes and is now doing extensive ecological research on all newly proposed sites. Raptors sometimes perch on wind towers and look for prey below. After sighting its prey, the eagle or hawk may make a swoop for the prey and be killed by the blades of the wind turbine.
These dreadful accidents number in the dozens of kills each year, while collisions with windows, buildings, communication towers, vehicles, and other man-made artifacts run into the millions each year. High-priority research on noisemaking devices and construction techniques to 56 O Healing Appalachia discourage bird roosting and collisions is under way.
Ideas on how to eliminate bat mortality at wind sites is also a top research priority for wind developers. Central and northern Appalachia are coal-producing regions. Promoting renewable energy alternatives, whether solar or wind, in these areas is somewhat difficult. Net metering, which applies to wind as well as to solar energy, is not as popular in coal country as in energy-short regions of America, though several companies are now moving to net metering in Kentucky, North Carolina, and other states.
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Healing Appalachia: Sustainable Living through Appropriate Technology - PDF Free Download
Sustainable Living through Appropriate Technology. Healing Appalachia is a practical guide for environmentally conscious residents of Appalachia and beyond. Authors Al Fritsch and Paul Gallimore have performed over environmental resource assessments in thirty-three states. They bring this knowledge to bear as they examine thirty low-cost, people-friendly, and environmentally benign appropriate technologies that can be put to work today in Appalachia. They discuss such issues as renewable energy and energy conservation, food preservation and gardening, forest management, land use, transportation, water conservation, proper waste disposal, and wildlife protection.
They pay close attention to the practicality of each technique according to affordability, ease of use, and ecological soundness. Their subjects range from solar home heating to greenhouses, from aquaculture to compost toilets, from organic gardening to wildlife restoration and enhancement, and from solar cars to microhydropower facilities. Their discussions of each topic benefit from the knowledge gained from thirty years of practical experience at environmental demonstration centers and public interest and educational organizations.
Each section of the book includes details on construction and maintenance, as well as resources for locating further information, making this an essential volume for everyone who cares about the future of Appalachia. Front cover Download Save. Solar Heating Applications pp. Shade Trees and Windbreaks pp. Intensive and Organic Gardening and Orcharding pp. Regional Heritage Plants pp. Solar Greenhouses and Season Extenders pp.