Jenny Vanderweele’s house looks out over Vanderweele Farm fields, so she has a front row seat to the bloom-and-bust summer season. As fall approaches, she spends hours in her kitchen putting up fall vegetables for the winter. Though she also pickles and cans produce from the farm, Vanderweele says freezing is a simple and effective way to preserve broccoli and cauliflower. “The longest parts of this process are getting the water to boil and waiting for the stuff to freeze,” she says. Properly prepared, cauliflower and broccoli should keep for up to a year — or even longer if vacuum packed. “Put it in your freezer and you have a beautiful way to open up some summer in the middle of the winter.”

Continue reading: Extend the Alaska summer: How to put up your veggies for winter

A Fairbanks developer said Tuesday he hopes he can build a 25-megawatt wind farm near Delta Junction despite limited avenues for public aid.

Mike Craft said his firm, Alaska Environmental Power, is working with Golden Valley Electric Association to study how to best feed wind power into Interior Alaska’s transmission grid.

The work parallels planning by Golden Valley for a separate wind farm near Healy.

Craft told a chamber of commerce audience Tuesday he hopes the integration studies will lead to power-sale agreements between his firm and the utility. He said Golden Valley previously agreed to a smaller, pilot sale agreement following construction of two smaller turbines at the Delta site.

“(It) made it possible for us to come on line with these two turbines. That helped us a lot,” Craft said. He said the turbines, the largest built with state aid, have produced 134,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Craft, a builder and residential developer, started looking to enter the wind power business roughly three years ago. He approached public officials last winter for help with his project and received lukewarm responses but said Tuesday he chose to continue and hopes to install 16 GE turbines near Delta.

The state’s environmental agency has delayed a request to the federal government for permits for the Healy Clean Coal project.

The decision came Tuesday, the next-to-last day of federal regulators’ 45-day review of the plan. Golden Valley Electric Association needs the permit to restart and operate the dormant experimental coal plant.

The state will resubmit the proposal, which would cover operations of the 50-megawatt coal plant, within a couple of months, state Division of Air Quality manager Jim Baumgartner wrote to federal regulators.

The state Division of Air Quality withdrew the proposed permit Tuesday from the Environmental Protection Agency’s review list. EPA managers had suggested last winter they might call for a rigorous redo of permit reviews, given the plant’s lack of action during the past 10 years. That, given the tightening of emissions standards since the plant’s construction, could doom the project.

A University of Alaska group will receive $3 million to study options to optimize wind-diesel hybrid energy systems in rural Alaska.

The Alaska Center for Energy and Power, based at UA Fairbanks, was awarded the grant by the federal Department of Energy.

The university says Alaska already has systems pairing wind turbines with diesel power plants but many are not performing as designed due to extreme weather and remote, distributed grid systems.

Research paid for by the grant will investigate technical issues related to power stability, long-term energy storage and control systems to better use fluctuating wind power.

Research also will investigate turbine performance in cold climates and remote locations and challenges such as icing, foundations in poor soils and remote monitoring.

Large rolls of black tubing sat like super-sized balls of yarn next to the playground outside Weller Elementary School Wednesday. The sun shined brightly on the south-facing hillside, where a bulldozer carved out a 12-foot hole.

The balls, which are actually polyethylene ground loops, were then rolled out and buried in the ditch, where they will harvest heat from underground to use in the school during the winter. In the summer, six solar thermal panels soon to be mounted on the school will replenish heat to the earth through the same tubes. The system will not only reap savings on heat for the school district but also will test a technology that is young in Fairbanks.

“I would like to see a system that would work well in the Interior and that the public can utilize and save dollars,” said Larry Morris, projects manager for the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.

The project is an experiment to see how well the systems work in tandem and to collect data on ground source heat pumps, which are common in the Lower 48 but rare in Fairbanks.

“What we’re trying to do here is pair that system with a solar system that will recharge the heat you take out of the ground. In warmer climates, the sun can recharge how much you take out,” said Aaron Sirois, an engineer for PDC Engineering. “We were trying to come up with a solution that’s kind of adapted to Fairbanks.”

WindPower Innovations Inc., a wind power infrastructure and smart grid solutions company (PINK SHEETS:WPNV), announced talks with Alaska Villages Electric Co-op (AVEC), a non-profit electric utility, owned by the people served in 53 villages throughout interior and western Alaska, and is the largest service area of any retail electric cooperative in the world.

News of the talks arrived in a written statement from WindPower.

“We are in the second round of talks with AVEC to enhance the efficiency of their 250-500 kW wind turbines with our system optimization and grid-tie solutions,” says John Myers, president and CEO of WindPower Innovations. “Alaska represents a marketplace in the hundreds of millions and soon to be over a billion dollars for wind and other alternative energy sources, and the adaptability of WindPower Innovations’ technology allows us to capitalize on opportunities in extreme and remote environments where others can’t. We will be able to provide AVEC with solutions that help them break through barriers in efficiency and help solve the challenges faced by Alaska’s extremes in climate, geography and distance.”

AVEC is in the process of upgrading and increasing the operating efficiency of its power plant facilities and distribution lines, along with expanding its wind power segment, continuing to move away from costly diesel-generated power.

Continue reading: Wind power company in ‘talks’ with AVEC

By CCHRC Staff

Q: Does it matter what type of wood I burn in my woodstove?

Most species of local wood are suitable for burning in a stove but do not burn wood that has been treated or painted. Regardless of the species, the best wood to use has been properly seasoned and stored. Wood that is fresh, or “green,” contains higher amounts of moisture, which will bring down a stove’s efficiency and cause excessive particulates and creosote buildup inside a chimney.

On a related point, only burn paper in your stove when starting a fire. Too much paper has the potential to produce a fire that is more than a stove or chimney can handle. Burning coal in a wood stove will have the same effect; so do not burn coal unless the stove is rated for it. Overall, avoid burning large amounts of paper or other combustibles that can significantly raise the stack temperature or cause the stove to burn hotter than it is designed to.

Q: I am thinking of installing solar panels on my home or property. What things do I need to think about before I begin?

There are a number of things to take into consideration when looking into a solar power system. First are the cost of electricity and financial incentives. A solar photovoltaic system has a large upfront cost but will provide savings over many years and will eventually pay itself off. Installing a large solar power system and selling the home a few years later will not provide enough time to pay back the investment. However, even pinning down exact numbers for payback can be a challenge since the cost of fuel and electricity both fluctuate. The federal government also provides tax incentives for solar panels and solar thermal systems.

More information can be found at www.energystar.gov. Golden Valley Electric Association’s SNAP program provides incentives as well.

More information on SNAP is available at www.gvea.com/ energyprograms/snap/.

Another challenge is location. Property on the north side of a hill will not collect as much light as a south-facing exposure. Also look at the amount of direct sunlight on a solar panel throughout the day. Shade from trees and other objects will lower the amount of power you make.

Consider the amount of maintenance that goes into a solar power system. Snow and leaves fall on solar arrays and should be cleaned off.

The amount debris can be limited by tilting panels to 49 degrees in the non-snowy months and 90 degrees in other months, which will also help capture more light from the sun’s low angle.

Contact a professional for further information and tips before getting started with an installation.

Alaska HomeWise articles promote home awareness for the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC). If you have a question, e-mail us at akhomewise@cchrc.org.You can also call the CCHRC at (907) 457-3454.

Instead of tossing that old computer or printer into the trash, Interior Alaska Green Star suggests that you take it to the annual Fall Electronics Recycling Event Sept. 24-25 at the Tanana Valley Fairgrounds.
Aged electronics of all sorts will be accepted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days.
There are small fees charged to offset the dismantling costs. One of the benefits is that the toxic materials in the old equipment are kept out of the landfill.
More than 115 tons of electronics have been recycled over the past four years through the regular Green Star recycling efforts. The total will go up next weekend.
“Items that will be accepted include: computers, monitors, laptops, printers, scanners, fax machines, TVs, VCRs, DVD players, cell phones, batteries, microwaves, answering machines, electric typewriters, and more,” says Andrea Miller of the local Green Star group.
If you would like to volunteer to help with this project, go to www.iagreenstar.org, call 452-4152 or write to info@greenstar.org.
If you are looking for reasons to participate, Green Star says that the volume of electronics is not the biggest disposal problem. The toxic elements are a bigger long-term threat to the environment.

Many communities have banned the disposal of electronics in landfills to avoid pollution problems.

“For example, a typical desktop computer (hard-drive and 17? CRT monitor) weighs 60 lbs and contains 2 to 4 pounds of lead. Many monitors and TVs use Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs) to produce sharp images. The glass screen in each monitor contains lead to shield the user from radiation produced by the CRT. Other toxic substances found in electronic devices include mercury, cadmium, copper, lithium, brominates flame-retardants, and phosphorus,” Green Star says.
“Fairbanks has a lined landfill for regular waste. The leachate that is generated is collected, tested, and if it passes disposal requirements is then pumped to the local waste water plant for disposal. Your groundwater is being protected, but e-waste can be better disposed of by recycling through local Green Star e-waste recycling events.”

Gov. Sean Parnell says that if Alaska is to meet the ambitious goal of getting half of its electricity from renewable sources some day, it will have to make a major commitment to big hydroelectric project, such as the Susitna project.

On a visit to Fairbanks today with running mate Mead Treadwell, Parnell said that he is putting a group together to see how a major hydro project could be financed. He said he wants to send a “strong signal” of his support of hydro power as a long-range option.

He also is looking for answers on ways to reduce the cost.

The Legislature and the governor approved $10 million earlier this year to update studies on Susitna and the proposed Chakachamna project.

The state now has an official policy that it will be getting 50 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025, according to a law approved by the Legislature and governor earlier this year.

It may be impossible to reach that target in 15 years. It will be impossible unless decisions are made soon to get something underway.

The federal government is giving Alaska $700,000 to take steps to improve energy efficiency in the state by 2020.

The U.S. Department of Energy funding is intended to go toward efforts such as expanding current energy efficiency programs and outreach and creating necessary policy to lead to a 15-percent improvement in efficiency over the next decade.

The department says this is part of nearly $30 million going to 12 states and territories.