Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 27, 1977)
EWEB studies windmill power generation Officials scout country in search of strongest winds By E.G. WHITE-SWIFT Of the Emerald Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of articles dealing with al ternative energy sources. Once-a-week prospector Dale Hagey of Leaburg climbs into his truck and drives up to Ryan Ridge, three miles north of Vida. Most prospectors are looking for rare minerals (or God), but Hagey looks for wind. Not just a breeze, but enough wind to oper ate a windmill for the Eugene Water and Electric Board, (EWEB). ‘The wind has been doing a lot of jobs for hundreds of years,” Hagey says. “The key element for building a windmill is building it where the wind blows most of the time. But no one has ever kept track of high wind locations.” Hagey does most of his pros pecting at his desk in the EWEB office, studying contour geological maps. The maps show differ ences in ground elevation, which helps Hagey locate ridges that are substantially higher than the sur rounding terrain. “I look for an area with a high ridge at right angles to the prevail ing wind,” he says, “because the ridge blocks the wind’s natural flow, concentrating the wind's force on the ridgetop.” In Oregon, most of the winds are from the west, so Hagey looks for north-south ridges. Once he finds a “windmill potential” ridge, the site is visited by Hagey and EWEB projects engineer Hal Wooster. VOTE TODAY Since 1971, when EWEB began investigating the wind generating potential of the McK enzie River area, three sites have been selected for further wind studies: Ryan Ridge, north of Vida; a ridge four miles south of Leaburg; and Carpenter Moun tain, which is part of the Wil lamette National Forest’s H.J. An drews Experimental Forest, 60 miles east of Springfield on the Upper McKenzie. Wind measuring devices that record the wind velocity once each hour were set up on Ryan Ridge and the Leaburg site in Oc tober 1975. After measuring the wind during the winter of 1975, Hagey and Wooster determined the Leaburg winds were not con stant enough to produce power, so the measuring equipment was moved to the Carpenter Mountain site. “The measuring equipment is really a small windmill itself,” Hagey says. “A blade-type propel ler is attached to a shaft that is part of a 55-foot pole. When the wind blows, the propeller turns the shaft. The wind speed is figured by recording how many times the shaft revolves in a set amount of time.” Hagey visits the Ryan Ridge site, which is on Weyerhaeuser Company land, about once a week to pick up the recorded wind speeds and check the equipment. The Carpenter Mountain equip ment is visited less often, as it is snowed in part of the year. The wind records from Ryan Ridge and Carpenter Mountain are taken to the EWEB office where engineer Wooster com pares them to wind records that have been kept on the Eugene Springfield area for the last four years. “Our records show that there is 20 times more wind at Ryan Ridge than there is in the Willamette Val ley,” Wooster says. “The winds at Carpenter Mountain are six to eight times those at Ryan Ridge. 1 CARD $13.00 2 CARDS $20.00 3 CARDS $26.00 4 CARDS $30.00 EACH CARD IS WORTH $15 OF POOL TIME The More You Buy The Cheaper It Is! Now Available at the EMU RECREATION CENTER Nine sets of wind measuring equipment were lost because strong winds literally blew them apart.” ‘‘So far, the wind records show that it is windy up at Carpenter Mountain when there is no air movement in the valley,” he says. "EWEB is trying to design a windmill that will run at full load in 24 mile per hour (mph) winds, yet withstand winds of up to 230 mph When we do, we will probably put it on Carpenter Mountain." The windmill is expected to have 80-foot diameter blades and sit on an 80-foot tower. It will be attached to a generator capable of producing 160 kilowatts each hour. “I expect it will cost EWEB $100,000 to build the tower and windmill and run a full test prog ram,” he says. "If we could just maintain the Carpenter Mountain windmill without damage from high winds, it would be a big step toward investing in windmills for commercial power.' EWEB has spent $20,000 in vestigating windmills at this point. If a Carpenter Mountain demonst ration project is successful, power lines would be strung to connect with the closest EWEB lines, five miles down the mountain. Wooster estimates windmills could be producing commercial power for EWEB as soon as 1983, if a wind-damage resistant tower can be designed. However, he expects that wind-generated elec tricity wil never account for more than 10 per cent of the average load of any utility ‘The wind is anything but pre dictable in western Oregon,” he says. “Any utility that developed wind-generating facilities would have to have a full power re placement capacity in some other type of energy-producing plant, just in case the wind died in the middle of the seventh game of the World World Series.” Solar energy to cut dorm bills ^ in school’s ‘Project Sunshower’ (CPS) — At California State University in San Jose (SJSU), dormitory administrator William Schooler simply got fed up with paying high utility rates. Schooler turned to Donald Aitken, head of the six-month-old SJSU Center for Solar Energy Appli cation, for help. They came up with a pioneering plan to install solar water heating units in three SJSU residence halls. To save money and provide practi cal experience to students, they would create a solar workshop. Under the guidance of Aitken and graduate stu dent Jim Altman, who supervises the construction staff of 15 undergraduates, solar energy units have been built and installed on each building. When the program, dubbed “Project Sunshower,” is completed, in June, 600 students will be using hot water heated without cost by the magnification of the sun’s rays, Altman said. Altman, an environmental studies graduate stu dent, believes the SJSU project is the largest student-built solar water-heating development ever. It is budgeted at a suprisingly low $125,000, as com pared to a similar project developed by contractors for a Georgia school system at a cost of $1 million. It seems SJSU wants to be the trend-setter in practical use of solar power. For instance, university officials have earmarked $600,000 to construct a solar heating and cooling plant for the new, $11 million library project at SJSU. Aitken is working on this building as a technical consultant to the ar chitects. Project Sunshower itself looks like the prototype for much greater use of solar power in the California state university system. Aitken hopes a successful Sunsnower demonstration win encourage tne uni versity to use solar methods to heat many of the system s buildings University officials, who approved the Sun shower proposal of Schooler and Aitken last sum mer, have already taken the bait. Beyond agreeing to finance the library s solar energy plant, the officials may extend the current plan to include another three dormitories and a 12-story residence hall at San Jose before expanding the project to other campuses The current project is budgeted for $125,000, said Altman, but in 11 years that much wilt have been saved. By 1977, Schooler said the project "will have paid for itself twice over,” in saved utility bils. According to Schooler, who is quoted in The Christian Science Monitor, the construction won't cost the taxpayers a cent, since reserves collected from student room rents over the years are high enough to cover the budget. Each dorm houses 200 students. Altman said his team of solar workshop students is building three holding tanks with a total water capacity of 27,000 gallons. They built 360 solar panels totaling 9,000 square feet and are placing them at the top of Wash bum, Royce and Hoover dormitories. When they are finished and professional plumbers and inspectors have adapted the solar heating tubes with the current natural gas system, 70 to 80 per cent of the water heating and cooling will be provided for. The reman ing percentage will be heated by the original natural gas furnaces, which will be maintained as a backup. To guarantee the long life of Project Sunshower, Altman said they used “hundred year materials.” These are basic raw materials such as wood, glass and steel that should be available for well over one hundred years in case repairs are necessary. Wind energy may be the key to dealing with the present energy shortage and the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) is not /ust “shooting the breeze when it affirms its commitment to developing alternative energy sources. EWEB officials have been studying the region to locate the windiest spots - in hopes of someday harnessing the power
