Saluting the alternative energy program in Russell

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October 22, 2008

By MIKE JAMES The Daily Independent Wed Oct 22, 2008, 09:50 AM EDT

RUSSELL — Solar panels gleamed in the bright autumn sunshine and turbine blades whizzed in the brisk breeze.

It couldn’t have been a better day to celebrate the completion of a hybrid alternative energy system harnessing the wind and the sun to light the hallways of the Russell Area Technology Center.

Top state and local officials gathered there Tuesday to mark the culmination of a project that started with balsa tabletop turbine models in Doug Keaton’s electricity class.

“To think of that small vision and the two-year process that got us to this point — the students have been able to access their dreams,” Keaton said.

It was a dream of making a difference in their school while demonstrating that alternative energies are practical, he said. “Our motto is ‘renewable is doable,’ and this project demonstrates that.”

Keaton’s project demonstrates that solar, wind and other alternative energy sources “are not science fiction ... but the future of energy,” said Helen Mountjoy, secretary of the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet.

Along the way students learned an array of life skills along with academics, among them teamwork, creative thinking, problem solving and communication, Mountjoy said.

Since building the tabletop mockups two years ago, Keaton’s classes have participated in a program unique in Kentucky and serves as a model for other schools to develop their own alternative energy programs, what Russell Superintendent Susan Compton called “an exemplary national model of energy efficiency.”

The full-sized wind turbine, along with the solar panel array and associated electronics, generates enough power to keep the lights on in the halls of the school.

The project also serves as an example of the future of Kentucky’s energy policy, said state Rep. Tanya Pullin, D-South Shore. In fact, she said, the last General Assembly passed a net metering bill enabling small electricity producers to profit by returning power they don’t use to the grid.

“They can put that policy into practice here,” Pullin said.

When they graduate, the students will have opportunities in the growing fields of alternative energy technology, said senior Jaron Bowen.

Bowen is looking forward to the third phase of the project, which will use biodiesel fuel to operate a generator and, if they produce enough, some of the district’s school buses.

“When people think of biodiesel they think of nasty, polluting, noisy trucks,” Bowen said. “Actually biodiesel is low in emissions and more efficient.”

By the end of the year, the students will build a biodiesel generator, essentially a mini-refinery, that will transform used cooking oil from the school cafeteria into fuel, Keaton said.

The district has three buses capable of running on the fuel.

“If we can make it, they’re going to use it,” Keaton said.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.

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