WIN Minutes
Nenana
There were 28 people at meeting today, including: Bonnie Reed,
We had mixed green salad, curry chicken with barley soup with pilot bread and ice cream for lunch.
WELCOME: By this week’s chairperson,
READING OF
PRAYER was lead by Adam White, followed by the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIENCE.
SPEAKERS/TOPICS
Home Energy Efficiency & Alternative Energy—Wes Alexander began his presentation by explaining why it is better to increase household energy efficiency by reducing energy use before you think about installing an alternative energy system in your home. He gave examples of ways to reduce energy use. You can reduce “phantom load” by using power strips for TV’s, VCR’s DVD players, computers, etc. so that they are switched off at the power source as they still draw power when you just turn them off on the appliance. He suggested using timers on vehicle plug-ins; a few hours will suffice until it goes 40 below or colder. Another suggestion was replacing incandescent bulbs with compact florescent lights. He went on to explain ways to seal the house up to keep cold out and heat in. He explained there is a delicate balance between sealing a house and the need for proper ventilation as you could create moisture problems and mold growth if the house is too tight. Ways to increase insulation included adding blow-in insulation into the roof, increasing insulation in the walls, burying insulation in around the perimeter of the outside of the house. He said replacing doors and windows is usually the first thing people think of when they look into increasing energy efficiency of a house but he said that typically this is the least effective as for the price you get very little increase in efficiency. He gave specific examples of this. Lastly, he mentioned maintaining your heat source, cleaning stove pipes and chimneys, having your furnace serviced regularly.
Wes described various life style modifications we can make including downsizing to a more fuel efficient vehicle, downsizing your home if space isn’t being utilized, shutting down portions of the home not in regular use and turning down the thermostat. These are all choices we can make on a daily basis that will have direct benefits in fuel/costs savings. He likened reducing your home’s electric load to investing money; there are immediate and a long-term payoffs. He re-iterated that some people are not willing to change their life styles but everyone will make different choices contingent upon their needs and values. Other strategies he described included: solar dry your laundry on a clothes line as electric dryers are responsible for about 25% of our home electric use; eat locally grown/subsistence foods to reduce the “embodied energy” (that which goes into growing, producing and transporting foodstuffs to Alaska); work together co-operatively as a community (for example sharing trucks, chain saws and labor to get fire wood, especially for Elders who might have difficulty obtaining this for themselves).
There was a period of questions and answers by the participants in this discussion. There were many questions about practical aspects of weatherizing your home. Wes said that the Energy Portal in
Wes then discussed various alternative and sustainable energy systems. Biomass systems are essential wood burning stoves and furnaces. He explained how more efficient wood stove utilize a process called wood gasification which simply means they burn at a much higher heat of between 18 hundred and 2 thousand degrees F. These kinds of units make more efficient use of the wood and the heat produced.
Solar electric is good in the summer in
Wes said that wind power is not so viable in this area because we do not have a smooth flow of wind. The Interior has turbulent winds that are hard on the equipment which is expensive to maintain. There is a man named Mike Craft that has a wind farm test site down in the Healy area. It was noted that this system is “broke more often than it is running.” He mentioned that the western coastal area of
Lastly, Wes talked about water turbine systems such as that proposed for Nenana. He described this as an “emerging technology.” He said that turbine systems that are underwater are more efficient than above water systems. He discussed some of the potential problems with river turbine generation.
We walked over to Nina Alexander’s house to tour her solar panel system which has been up and running for several years. Wes showed us the inverter and the various meter boxes used by the system and explained how the system was built and the costs associated with that process.
“God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
Kahlil Gibran
ADJOURNMENT: Approximately