From: Rita Schenck [mailto:rita@iere.org]
Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 1:44 PM
To: Rita Schenck
Subject: Sustainable Energy Update #1

Dear Friends:

As you know, just two weeks ago we received a grant from Paul Allen to look at sustainable energy on Vashon Island. The grant is to support an evaluation of all renewable energy resources on the island, both technically and economically. Once we know what is feasible, we will be asking the Vashon-Maury Island community what it wants to do. Since our grant was approved, lots has already happened.

We have retained Princeton Energy Resources International (PERI), a renewable energy consulting firm, to do the energy engineering study. PERI can be found at http://www.perihq.com/. Last week PERI's expert on wind and tidal power (Dan Ancona) came to the island for a preliminary onsite assessment. He told me that he thought there were a few places on the island that were potential sites to generate wind power. But Dan thought there were more options for biogas and tidal power on the island.

We'll learn more as we go through all the potential energy sources-- and we will look at them all!

I have been speaking with Puget Sound Energy. They are quite supportive of renewable energy development. By next week they will provide us with the electricity consumption profile for the island, as well as the natural gas figures. This will be a big help as we move forward with our work of matching renewable energy production with our consumption. Maybe we can even be a net exporter of energy!

We have met with a tidal power generating company, Blue Energy out of Vancouver BC. Unfortunately, their technology does not look to be a good fit for the island at this time. They appear to be more interested in working with bridges as a supporting structure for their turbines-- they are the company that is proposing to install turbines under the Tacoma Narrows bridge. Since there are no plans for bridges to the island, we probably won't be working with them.

I met with the Sustainable Forestry Committee of the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council. They were very supportive of the use of waste wood as a source of energy. In particular, they pointed out that much of the open burning on the island would disappear if there were a cost-effective way to do waste wood removal. This could create jobs on the island, and would reduce the air pollution from open burning.

Incidentally, open wood burning on the island is NOT a good thing. Low temperature burning creates lots of particulates and carbon monoxide, as well an other incomplete burning products. We get significant sea spray, and low temperature burning in conjunction with the chlorine in the sea spray creates lots of dioxins. In addition, the soils on the island are polluted with arsenic lead and cadmium from the former ASARCO smelter in Tacoma. Open burning heats up the soils and releases these heavy metals into the air again. Burning these same materials in a controlled fashion (with air pollution control devices) would be a much more environmentally friendly solution to the waste wood problem. And we could recover the energy, too.

Rob Harmon with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation met with me this week. The foundation funds the building of renewable energy resources and may be a source of funding when we get around to actually building new generation. We will continue to work with Rob as the project moves along.

I expect to produce an update of our project as we go forward-- about every two weeks. If you have any ideas, please share them. If you have any friends that you think would like to know what is happening here, please have them contact me, and I will put them on the mail list.

Rita Schenck
Institute for Environmental Research and Education
P.O. Box 2449
Vashon, WA 98070

206-463-7430
206-279-1570 (fax)
rita@iere.org