Aug 10 2006
Frederick Phelps says he is not tilting at windmills. Dale LeCaptain is not merely trying to put fast food onto a fast lane.
In the wake of sky-high gas prices, the Central Michigan University professors are examining alternative energy sources as ways to lower the campus' gas and power costs, which have risen dramatically in recent years.
Phelps, an associate professor of physics in the College of Science and Technology, is studying wind turbines and embarking on a two-year project to determine whether the campus experiences enough wind velocity to make wind-powered generators feasible.
LeCaptain, an assistant professor of chemistry in the college, began research last summer on more efficient ways to make bio-diesel fuel from used cooking oils and greases - an increasingly popular way for people to power their diesel cars.
He hopes eventually to fine-tune the process enough to allow the university to recycle used cooking oils from its residence hall kitchens for use in its motor pool.
"That's where the new sources are going to be developed - doing research into alternative energies," LeCaptain said. "Every little bit is going to help."
Phelps, who worked with NASA on wind turbines in the early 1980s, said he began considering ways to introduce wind power to CMU a year ago when he visited Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., for a class reunion and observed a wind turbine providing power on campus.
"The nice thing about wind is the cost of the fuel," Phelps said. "It doesn't go up."
Some states have used wind turbines for nearly three decades as a key power source - particularly California, South Dakota and Texas - and the turbines have become even more popular in Western Europe. Fueling the rising interest in turbines is that it is 10 times less expensive today to produce the wind power than in the early 1980s, Phelps said.
Phelps is planning to conduct a two-year study, costing $12,000, to determine whether the idea of wind turbines at CMU is feasible. Contractors will install several anemometers, which are wind meters, on a broadcast tower on the south edge of campus to determine wind velocity at various heights.
LeCaptain said almost any kind of natural cooking oil - vegetable, corn, soybean, olive oil - can be converted to bio-diesel fuel. He said one challenge is removing food debris, such as French fry crumbs, from the leftover oil.
He admitted that relying on cooking oils will never meet the nation's energy needs.
"Your supply is limited," LeCaptain said. "You can't plant more deep-fryers. And people are eating less fried foods."
http://www.cmich.edu