Ridgewood+Project+Site

RHS Team, this will be your page that you will use when collaborating on your chosen project. We will have regular follow-up meetings in Mr. Lorenz' office at 11:00a.m. on the following dates: 2/22/10 (normally would be the 19th, but that falls during Feb. break) 3/5/10 3/19/10 4/2/10 - No meeting due to Spring Break 4/9/10 - This will be our final prep meeting before our much anticipated departure!!!!

Research on Shetland resources: http://energyeducation.wikispaces.com/Shetland+Resources+Research There's quite a bit of worthwhile stuff here, I think.

To start us off...

U.S. Energy Information Administration - Annual Energy Overview

Estimated Number of Alternative-Fueled Vehicles in Use and Fuel Consumption, 1992- 2007: []


 * Biofuels**

1) Ethanol: [] 2) Biodiesel: [] (notice how recently it just got introduced) 3) Natural Gas: I tried to find chart for it as a vehicle fuel, but there were none; only for production and consumption by sectors

Are there any more we should focus on?

-Victoria

Hey, I just decided to copy and paste your research onto this page so we can organize ourselves better. -Victoria

__BIOFUEL NOTES and such__ By Phoebe


 * Note: This will be added to as I find more research. Please feel free to comment and add!

This website [] has some useful, concise information. Something to note is that ethanol is apparently difficult to use in colder climates because of its low vapor pressure; this might be a problem for using it in the Shetland Islands. ^Interesting note: I'm doing some research on biofuels for my physics class, too. Our sub says that engines can be designed to use ethanol in colder climates (and have already been in places like Alaska) so that the fuel is heated before it is burned.

Data from PDF ([] ) This contains information from the s ecretaries of energy and agriculture under Bush (Samuel W. Bodman and Edward T. Schafer) and is from 2008.

According to this PDF: -Ethanol keeps American gas prices down significantly -Biofuels also already significantly decrease American dependence on oil at their current (2008) levels of use -Biofuels reduce emissions 19% from gas (this is one of the weaker aspects of biofuels, I think; the emission levels are obviously better when you're not burning anything at all... the PDF didn't have many statistics on the actual amount of emissions. -Increase in food prices are more because of higher oil and gas, droughts, etc. Biofuels are responsible for "only a small percentage" of this increase. -The PDF also suggests using land that isn't suitable for crops to grow biofuels. This idea needs more development... maybe something else to think about. (Where/how would this be done? It's also important to be able to keep land arable; no matter what you're growing, you need soil with nutrients.

Article and accompanying graph about Kyoto not accounting for carbon emissions from biomass. The graph is here:



[] The article otherwise doesn't have very much to say other than that biofuels can be as bad (or worse) than fossil fuels if not compensated for properly. A similar article says that "Sustainable biofuels can be a reality but only in combination with reductions in fuel demand and increased productivity on existing agricultural lands..." The specifics are vague, but the article makes a point of emphasizing the necessity of implementing a certain level of safeguards against possible emissions from biofuel production/energy extraction. This and production space are probably the two largest problems with biofuel. From reading this, it seems that biofuel does have a certain level of potential, but it hasn't yet been harnessed properly. In order for biofuels to not cause more problems than they solve, we must develop some sort of system in order to a) cap emissions, b)extract fuel as efficently as possible, c)use land as efficently as possible, etc. (How to do this requires more research... there doesn't seem to really be much of a system in place now, so it might be interesting to try to develop one of some kind.)

Brief thought: What parts of crops are wasted or not used? What is thrown away? Can that be used also in place of growing new crops/destroying forest land for those new crops? (But, as Ryan said below, the emission levels are still a problem... and that's the problem we're trying to solve in the first place.)

Hi Phoebe and Victoria, I found the PDF link very interesting; especially the bit in which it was described that biofuels used today only reduce CO2 emmissions by 19% when they are used to replace fossil fuels. Although it is not a great comparison I have found out that when the full life cycle of a wind turbine is taken into account the CO2 emmissions are 98% less than natural gas and 99% less than coal emmissions. I believe this proves that even though bio-fuels are "greener" than vehicle fuels used today there are even less environmentally harmful ways of producing energy and this presents the question of how wind energy could be converted to run a vehicle? Having said all of this I am not completely against bio-fuels and I'm sure you'll get some interesting results from your experiments. I would also like to re-ask my question - Could bio-fuels be converted to make "greener" plastics? To help me answer this can you post a chemical formula for some of the bio-fuels you are experimenting on? - Ryan

Hi, Ryan: I think your analysis of biofuels is correct; however, I do think there is potential for better technologies to be developed. Since there has been so little progress in this area--most biofuel growing has just been for volume without regards to advancing/improving methodology-- I think it's still definitely worth looking into. This is especially because of the problem of using wind (or solar, actually) to power a car... unless you could "plug in" the car using a rechargable battery, I'm not sure how they would be usable. I wonder if hydrogen-powered cars are still considered a feasible option... I'll look into that. We've largely been looking at ethanol: its molecular formula is C2H5OH. It's a very simple alcohol, so it's easy to extract. The problem with a lot of biomass is that cellulose, which is... Well. I was just going to say that cellulose is difficult to break down into ethanol and use, but apparently there is a way. (Sorry to use Wikipedia, but... it's extremely convenient! [] ) Here's a PDF describing celluosic ethanol plants in the US. [] The webpage is here: [] (This is really interesting! Here's some more from the Department of Energy: "Cellulosic ethanol has not yet been produced commercially. However, several commercial cellulosic ethanol production plants are under construction, and intensive [|research and development] is rapidly advancing the state of cellulosic ethanol technology, including biochemical and thermochemical conversion processes." [] ^This seems to have a lot of good information on biomass/fuels in general. Again, more development certainly seems to be a possibility)

...anyway. A science teacher at my school also mentioned hemp (!) as biofuel. Here's some info: "Hemp seed oil can be used as is in bio-diesel engines. Methyl esters, or bio-diesel, can be made from any oil or fat including hemp seed oil. The reaction requires the oil, an alcohol (usually methanol), and a catalyst, which produces bio-diesel and small amount of glycerol or glycerin. When co-fired with 15% methanol, bio-diesel fuel produces energy less than 1/3 as pollution as petroleum diesel. Energy and Fuel from Hemp Stalks through Pyrolysis Pyrolysis is the technique of applying high heat to biomass, or organic plants and tree matter, with little or no air. Reduced emissions from coal-fired power plants and automobiles can be accomplished by converting biomass to fuel utilizing pyrolysis technology. The process can produce, from lingo-cellulosic material (like the stalks of hemp), charcoal, gasoline, ethanol, non-condensable gasses, acetic acid, acetone, methane, and methanol. Process adjustments can be done to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas, or methanol, with 95.5% fuel-to-feed ratios. Around 68% of the energy of the raw biomass will be contained in the charcoal and fuel oils -- renewable energy generated here at home, instead of overpaying for foreign petroleum." [] This site also has a list of hemp v. fossil fuels, which is interesting to look at. Here's more information from "Hempcar"... it seems that a bunch of people made a car that ran on hemp biodiesel and toured it around the US and Canada. Pretty cool... [] I'm not sure how, um, accurate this information is, though.

But, about plastics... [] And also: []

Admittedly, all of this seems a lot more... iffy than windpower. But I think it's important to think about, especially for fuel. (But if the hemp thing is possible, it seems like something worth trying.)

Signing off (finally), Phoebe**

Robert, Ryan and Keir: We were wondering if one of you could explain to us how peatland in the Shetland islands is utilized (agriculture, energy, etc) and how important of a role it plays as a resource.

Thanks, The RHS team

- In Shetland some peat is still cut to use as a fuel. This is done by the people that use peat as a fuel (it is just cut from family owened peat banks). Other peatland is used as grazing for animals such as sheep. The peatland is used far more for agriculture than energy.

- Ryan

Hi all, Mr. Lorenz asked me to share this with everyone. It is a very exciting project/club that several RHS students are taking part in partnership with very fine local technology university. There is some definite relevancy with what you all are researching.

Nanocrystalline Solar Cell Project For more information go to: []

Here's some information on the resources the Shetland Islands has been using/has to offer. -Phoebe (Bold added by me)

[] "In the early 1970s, oil and gas were found off Shetland. The [|East Shetland Basin]is one of the largest petroleum sedimentary basins in Europe and the oil extracted there is sent to the terminal at [|Sullom Voe] Sullom Voe terminal opened in 1978 and is the largest oil export harbour in the [|United Kingdom] with a volume of 25 million tons per year. Income from oil, and the improved economic state that oil-related development has brought, has resulted in reduced emigration and vastly improved infrastructure throughout Shetland, leading to an improved quality of life."

Info from the Shetland Islands Council ([]) "Shetland relies on oil and waste gas for 93% of its energy production**. This overwhelming reliance on imported fossil fuel is not sustainable in the longer term. Shetland's energy production fails to take advantage of the islands'** abundant renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and tidal power. **Scottish Hydro-Electric is obliged by law to obtain a certain amount of electricity from renewable sources. However, the** electricity distribution system (local grid) for Shetland is a closed system with limited capacity and cannot cope with large amounts of renewable energy, which tends to produce a variable supply requiring back up power from the Lerwick generator. **By 1999, the Council had only received three planning applications for commercial wind farm developments with none as yet under construction. Nevertheless, there are examples of successful domestic wind generators and the islands of Fair Isle and Foula have had their own wind generated electricity supply schemes for several years."

[]** "Winds and tides **offer the opportunity to generate very large amounts of electricity, far more than the islands alone could ever use. At the moment, though,** there is no electrical connection between Shetland and the UK mainland**, which means that most of Shetland’s electricity has to be generated in Lerwick by a diesel power station. However, some electricity –** sometimes up to about 20% of demand – is generated either by the five turbines at the small Burradale wind farm just west of Lerwick or by those that increasingly provide power to community halls and some houses**."

[] This article is from last year; it's about an energy group (Scottish and Southern)'s plans to build a wind farm in the Shetland Islands.

[] This follow-up in The Guardian is very interesting... here are some highlights. "The proposed 550MW windfarm, sprawling across the centre of Shetland's main island, would add almost 20% to existing onshore wind capacity. But the objectors say the plans could seriously damage breeding sites for endangered birds, including a rare wader, the whimbrel, which was unexpectedly discovered by the windfarm developer's own environmental survey teams. Other species at risk include the red throated diver, golden plover and merlin." "The RSPB heavily criticised the proposal from Viking [|Energy] after initially indicating it could support the scheme.** The RSPB also claims now that installation of the turbines could release significant carbon dioxide from the peat bogs affected, undermining the turbines' potential to combat global warming**." "In a detailed critique of the proposal, Sepa (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) has asked Viking Energy to significantly rethink its plans to cut out and dump up to 1m cubic metres of peat during construction, and asked ministers to impose tough conditions to protect local water quality and freshwater species." This is where the Calera idea comes in... interesting!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cement-from-carbon-dioxide