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Re: [Phys-l] Nuclear Reactors



Here's a sad but interesting story. A few years ago we came pretty
close to getting a 3MW Vestas wind turbine for Bluffton University. I
was one of the persons pushing for this, and I was appointed to the
planning committee. We did a preliminary study and found we had a good
site with reasonable wind. We found a group of investors willing to
loan the whole amount as a capital loan at a reasonable interest rate.

Our regular source of electricity is American Electric Power (AEP),
which in our area is 90% coal and 10% nuclear, and our rate is about
$0.07/kWhr.

We had two options for using the electricity from the turbine...

(Option 1) We could sell it to AEP for their generation cost of about
($0.02/kWhr) and then buy it back at $0.07/kWhr, thus saving $0.02/kWhr.
We estimated a 10-year payback period doing it this way. This would be
easiest to implement because we wouldn't need a substation/switch to use
AEP as campus backup when the turbine isn't enough.

(Option 2) Install a substation/switch that would allow us to use the
electricity directly (saving $0.07/kWhr on what we use, and selling any
excess to AEP at $0.02/kWhr), and also be able to supplement the turbine
from AEP (at $0.07/kWhr) when the wind was too low or the turbine was
down. This was more difficult for determining the payback period
because it's difficult to determine how often we would have electricity
to sell to AEP as opposed to needing to supplement the turbine by
purchasing electricity from AEP. Our estimate for this was about a 3 to
6-year payback.

Either option seemed like a no-brainer, we had a lot of community
support, and I thought we were going to do it. But the best site on
campus was west-southwest of the intercollegiate soccer field and
baseball field. The athletic department reasoned that late afternoon
sun coming through the turbine blades would cast flickering shadows on
the playing fields during games. That killed the program. The fear
that an athletic event would occasionally get flicking shadows during a
game killed what would have been an excellent investment in alternative
electric energy for the university.

Since that time we have had a change in the administration, and I am
trying to rekindle interest in a turbine, but movement is slow.

This is just one example that shows how difficult it can be to use
"alternative energy" even in situations for which the economics looks
quite favorable.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu