Green Science

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  • Meetings: Tuesdays at 1pm.
  • 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.
    • (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.
      • also need walking pads to protect roof surface because of foot traffic resulting from service and educational activities for solar panels
        • (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.
    • Mary to contact to see if he has everything he needs to approve --
      • done, conversation started


  • 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
    • 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
    • (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
  • Wind monitoring South of campus
    • 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. waiting on response.
      • (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
  • Coordination with Indiana State Commerce
    • 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.
  • 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.
    • 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.
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