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Press Releases Winds of Change: Seeing the big picture with the help of alternative energy EOS Spheres Fall, 2007 DURHAM - ON SEPTEMBER 30, the diesel generators at the Marine biological Laboratory on Appledore Island were shut down for the season as usual. but for the first time ever, the extensive atmospheric research being conducted by UNh scientists pressed on, and the measurements and data analysis will continue throughout the harsh winter months on the largest of the Isles of Shoals, six miles off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. The answer to the offshore power problem was blowin’ in the wind; a unique, collapsible wind turbine designed specifically for Appledore is now supplying enough juice into a 7,000-pound battery bank for the AIRMAP program to gather much-needed year-round data in the marine environment. “The system is working really well and is actually generating more power than we anticipated,” says Kevan Carpenter, the AIRMAP project director in charge of the turbine’s operation. This unexpected bonus could not be timelier and has enabled the program to keep some power-hungry, high-maintenance, mercury-measuring instruments up and running. Should all continue to go well, the critical measurements will continue right through the winter—a significant development in the scientific investigation of this ubiquitous but tricky-to-measure airborne toxin. “These will be the first continuous measurements of mercury and its chemical speciation year round in the marine environment,” says AIRMAP principal investigator Robert Talbot, director of the Climate Change Research Center. adds, “And the unique data should help answer many scientific questions regarding the largely unknown area of ocean-atmosphere cycling of mercury.” There is a small array of solar panels on the island as well, but the turbine’s performance thus far hammers home the fact that the right alternative energy option for the winter season was chosen. Notes Carpenter, “Solar panels are an excellent source of power for the summer months but wind power takes over in the fall, winter, and spring. The data we have collected to date on the solar and wind power generated has given us more confidence that we made the right decision.” The decision wasn’t exactly an easy one, in large part because Appledore is both home to a large breeding bird population and a migratory songbird stopover. It took over two years of planning, designing, and permitting before the turbine blades whirled and voltage flowed—and the birds were protected. Juggling the potentially competing objectives of protecting the birds while at the same time gathering year-round data in the marine environment, Carpenter began looking for a collapsible wind turbine as the most practical and sustainable approach. Custom-designed and built by engineer Robert Pechie of Northeast Wind Energy in Connecticut, the 7.5 kilowatt turbine rises 80 feet into the air, has no guide lines to support it, and can be lowered by a single person at the flick of a switch. If bad weather hits or bird problems arise, down it comes. Notes Carpenter, “during any of the migratory periods bird monitors are going to walk the turbine twice a day to see if turbines of this size have an impact on bird populations.” Walks made during the fall migratory season turned up no dead birds. Ninety-five acre Appledore Island is the site of one of seven atmospheric observatories run by AIRMAP. The NOAA-funded, nine-year-old air quality and climate program seeks to unravel fundamental chemistry-climate connections in areas of New England directly downwind from major urban sources of emissions. The program’s anchor observatory at Thompson farm in durham samples over 180 chemical compounds via state-of-the-art instrumentation. The original version of this article, written by David Sims, can be found in the Fall, 2007 issue of EOS Spheres. |
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