Green Science

About

This is the home base for the Green Sciences Group, part of the Earlham Computer Science Applied Groups. Our weekly meeting minutes are posted at GreenSci:minutes.

Current people in GS are Sadie Sadie Prego, Andrey Gavrilov and Ivan Babic.

Current Projects

• EDisplay Code

Potential Projects

• Solar Heart
  • Phone and Laptop solar charging stations (A)

   -http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Simple-Solar-Charging-Station/?ALLSTEPS* 

• Portable Demo System-
• Solar array and real time monitoring - SCP, AG, GC

Green Zone ++

• • Decorating walls (A)

   -http://www.save-on-crafts.com/greenled1.html

• • Grass Ceiling (I)
  • More friendly solar and wind energy presentation (A)
  • Making interactive battery
  • Bike charging station (S)

   -http://www.instructables.com/id/Turn-an-exercise-bike-into-an-energy-bike/
   -http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-a-Bicycle-Generator-1/

• • Lights being power from solar
  • Window green working stations (I)
  • Vertical garden (S)

   -http://www.designsponge.com/2011/09/diy-project-recycled-pallet-vertical-garden.html
   -http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2013/04/succulent-wall-planter-2.html
   -http://www.livingwallart.com/category/do-it-yourself/

• To do list:
  • Most used chargers (phones + laptops) (S)

Links

Technology and Sustainability presentation (Ben, Ivan, Charlie)

Wind Projects - collect the material from Green Science and HIP and move it here - includes wind genny monitoring

Green Zone - collect the material from Charlie's webspace and Green Science and move it here

Software

Hardware

Data Management

Blower Door Instructions

Early Developments

Wind Ginny at Miller Farm

• Overall Design

Meetings: Mondays over lunch. (Mary Tamm, Alex Lemann, Tom Weiss-Lehman, and Ehren Nagel along with Charlie Peck and Mic Jackson)

Last updated: 2005-11-28

• Coming Soon

• New locations for gear
  • Wind tower on ground on front campus, Mic and John will talk to Doug. Small demonstration unit on the roof for classes. Incorporate DC lights run off batteries for the path to ESR.
  • Solar still on Dennis.
  • Mic to contact Geoff about a visit to Earlham to discuss locations RSN.

• See the HIP wiki for details about the hardware work that is going on.

• Solar panel setup on roof of Dennis
  • Expedite Bill Mullin's approval of mounting system on parapets
    • Bill responded to the Dennis Hall 4th floor diagrams made by Mic and Mary last Thursday (20050616). He indicated that he would check 3rd floor structurals for wind tower. We need Geoff's drawings for parapet mount. If we have not heard by Friday (20050621), Mary needs to follow up.
    • (20050726) Bill, Mary, Charlie and Mic agreed on location and rough engineering for tower mount this week. Bill is finalizing plans.
    • (20050809) Mary will follow up with Bill on the tower mount design.

• Infrastructure
  • (20050809) Charlie sent an email to Geoff indicating exactly where solars are to be mounted (6 on west parapet, 10 on east parapet and 4 on roof), and that he should move ahead with permitting and selecting a local contractor for installation of electrical hardware and wiring. This is to include wiring for the wind generator, as well.
  • (20050809) Mic will contact Harry Phillips (RP&L) to begin coordination for the grid interconnection at Dennis and at Miller farm.

• • (Geoff Greenfield is frozen until we get this)
    • Mic needs to call Geoff to follow up on Bill's document, and to request design for parapet mount.
    • (20050706 - Mic) Geoff is just bringing a new employee on board, with CAD skills. Her first job is to make his rough sketch of the parapet mount into an engineering sketch.
      • (20050712) Mary will follow up with Geoff on CAD parapet mount design and with Bill on flat roof mount and structural issue wrt wind tower, and with Andy on the Green Zone renderings

• • (20050726) We have not gotten CAD drawings for parapet mounts from Third-Sun
    • Mary is to contact Geoff to find status, and to ask Geoff for his current plans as how many panels go on parapet and how many on roof. We agreed that some need to be on roof for pedagogical and potential future expansion reasons.
    • (20050809) Mary will follow up with Geoff, again, on CAD drawings for the parapet mounts.
    • (20050829) Mary will, again, contact and push both Bill and Geoff for the tower mount plans and the parapet mount plans, respectively.

• • • (20050829) also need walking pads to protect roof surface because of foot traffic resulting from service and educational activities for solar panels. Mic will call the supplier to see if we can get a donation, or what the costs will be.
      • (20050729) Firestone Building Products Company 100% post-industrial products, locally manufactured.
        • (20050809)This looks like a very good product, and is made locally. Mary will contact a representative of the company. If the situation seems right, we may invite them to be a partner in this project.
      • Humane Manufacturing uses recycled tires
      • Sarnafil recycles in-house scraps.
      • (20050712) Mic will contact the young civil engineer we'd worked with last year to see if he is available
        • (20050726) put this on hold because Bill is doing the engineering.

• Green Zone setup in the first floor lounge of Dennis
  • Contact Andy Chao and get whatever he has for a rendering of the first floor space, Mary to find phone/physical address.
    • met with Andy on Tuesday morning (20050621), and will meet again on Thursday at 10:30.
    • Mic needs to find pictures of equipment and send to Andy
    • Charlie needs to read basic green science document, find out what we planned for display cases and let Andy know
    • http://www.usgbc.com -
    • (20050712) also try http://www.usgbc.org
    • Green walls, composite or bamboo table to match existing carpet and new wall color.
    • The Green Zone should be LEEDS certifiable, maybe silver or gold (not platinum).
    • Rolling, armless chairs with flexible backs.
  • Re-read the green zone document, start to plan various interactive displays (Alex and Mary)
    • Power interface display cabinet
      • inverter/switch to indicate whether we are pushing electricity into the Dennis grid or taking electricity from that grid
    • Display wall
      • Cabinets - Roof Systems monitoring and conversion
      • Posters - Mary is putting together text files for what she thinks should be on them.
        • Environmental Responsibility Plan (by whiteboard)
        • Wind and Solar Roof Systems (by mirror with arrow for "see cabinet")
          • Wind Poster
          • Solar Poster
  • Contact RP&L to learn about net metering
  • (20050726) Andy contacted us today, and is almost done with his rendering -- Mary will follow up
    • how about indoor astroturf (green) to replace carpet?
    • ask Andy to look at the USGBC site for other possible LEED's certified furnishings
    • (20050829) Mary spoke with Andy who promised to send the rendering to Mic by early September.

• • (20050726) Mary working on renewable energy information for displays -- options, noise, electrical noise, birds and bats, micro-climate, comparisons to coal and natural gas, cost of production for equipment, long-term operating and maintenance requirements and costs, history of the technology, wind prospecting, solar energy costs and payback period, Indiana-specific issues
    • She will develop a new wiki document on solar and wind information, and link it to this document

• • (20050809) Mic hesitantly agreed to find new homes for the Stonehenge models and the portraits on professors Dennis and Stanley.

• Wind monitoring South of campus
  • (20050829) For fall, Tom and Alex will be working on hardware and software to support what Mary is doing. Similar software and hardware will be used for the Green Zone in Dennis. For details, follow this link (future) to the HIP (Hardware Interfacing Project) wiki.
  • Maps
  • Anemometer setup, first on roof of Dennis then in field, with Alex
    • Charlie and Mary will go to area
    • (20050712) making progress, some technical problems, and some programming to be done -- but no mysteries left, should be ready to deploy equipment for wind monitoring south of campus -- they may arrange this as a movable pole with two anemometers at different heights like wind prospectors would use.
    • The Wind direction sends an analogue number. The wind speed is the number of pulses per 2.25 second interval. The number of pulses is the windspeed in MPH. Issue now is getting the count to reset after set time.
    • (20050720) Mary has a program that uses threads that will eventually work with the anemometer.
  • PMP hardware/software setup, with Alex
    • The sample program for reading A/D ports doesn't work on our setup, Alex will contact tech support.
    • Document PMP setup in a wiki (HIP/PMP Setup)

• Wind generator setup on roof of Dennis
  • Need engineering design of tower/pole structure for generator
  • Mary to contact to see if he has everything he needs to design
  • (20050726) Mary will check (on behalf of Ray Hively and his planned radio telescope) with Bergey to determine the electrical noise characteristics of the wind generator

• Miller Farm
  • Contact John Walker about energy usage data.
  • Contacted RP&L.
    • (20050726) Mary got the data from Gus Duke at RPL, and will load it on a database this week -- plan to analyse the data as soon as possible
    • (20050810) Data from Miller Farm usage and Earlham Subplant are entered into the same weather database sql. (Earlham's meter number is wrong is not accurate)

• Coordination with Indiana State Commerce (this moved to Vice-Governor's office)
  • Heather Rippey (emails are invalid), Program Manager, Energy Resources
  • Indiana Dept of Commerce, One North Capitol, Suite 700
  • Indianapolis, IN, 46204
  • 317-232-8965, fax: 317-232-8995, Mic to call
  • www.indianacommerce.com
  • Big ?? -- Are the Alternative Power and Energy (APE) and Energy Education and Demonstration Grant Programs still operative?
    • (20050621) We have unable to establish contact with the State.
  • (20050711 - Mic) Heather Rippey's office no longer exists, but I've had excellent contact with
    • Ryan J. Brown,
    • Office of the Lieutenant Governor - Energy Group,
    • Program Manager
    • 317-232-8961
    • rbrown@lg.in.gov
    • www.energy.IN.gov
  • Ryan is very interested in what we are doing and believes it can be supported to the tune of 50% of the overall cost (previous gov't commitment was up to 30%). He sent me documentation for the Education and Demonstration program, and I'm in the process of writing an initial document to send to him. There is no particular format -- we sent him certain information, and he lets us know what more or different information he needs. Also, no particular time schedule.
    • The current proposal draft is at http://www.cs.earlham.edu/~micj/_greenScience/EEDproposalJuly05.txt
    • (20050726) The draft was sent to Ryan Brown last week. Mic will contact him soon to see what needs to be done next.
    • (200050809) Mic sent a follow-up email to Ryan.
    • (20050829) Ryan called Mic at home over the weekend, and indicated real excitement over the project, using words like good and great. He especially noted approval of the third phase -- solar panels at Miller Farm, and encouraged me to emphasize that more. Also, we need to include number details concerning energy savings and pollutant reduction. We need to estimate these on a yearly basis and state any assumptions we had to make. We also need to have a more detailed budget, done on a spreadsheet. Finally, we need letters of agreement and support from Doug Bennett and Richmond Power and Light. He asked us to submit the final proposal as soon as possible (electronic and hardcopy).

• Weather Station
  • Complete hardware setup and monitoring software (Alex and Mary)
    • Waiting for a part from Davis.
    • Create wiki (HIP/Weather Station Setup) with the details of the ETS and Davis station
  • Cleanup and organize data, Mary has chart - figuring out how to compare our data with other local data.
    • (20050810) other local data is entered into a sql database.
  • Complete web interface with tabular and graphic output
  • When not occupied with pressing duties, Mary will work on become the team meteorologist.
  • (20050726) station is up and running again (www.cs.earlham.edu), Mary has made progress at software, and we are getting the part from Davis this week.

• Resources
  • http://www.cs.earlham.edu/~charliep/green-science/overview.html - The plan, so to speak. This should be moved into a wiki page at some point so we can all update it easily.
    • overview

• • (20050711 - Mic) I've updated this page as part of the application prepartion process. Find it at http://www.cs.earlham.edu/~micj/_greenScience/GreenScienceProjectsOverview.txt

• Press
  • http://www.earlham.edu/publicaffairs/content/pressroom/archive/2005/june/050617s-energy.php - Earlham's write-up of the Green Science project.