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Massachusetts seeking bids for largest renewable energy contract in New England history

By Crystal Bui

August 1, 2017

Read the original article Here

Massachusetts is now reviewing proposals to bring clean energy to the state.

Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration is seeking project bids worldwide to provide up to 1,200 megawatts of energy.

The governor is taking proposals from water, wind, and solar power companies, with local businesses looking to grab the largest renewable energy contract in New England history.

Other proposals from energy companies come from near and far, including Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as well as Vermont, Maine, Indianapolis, Canada and even the United Kingdom.

One familiar company is making a run for the contract: Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind. They’re known for their first off-shore wind farm in the United States, right off Block Island.

Deepwater Wind shared their proposal with NBC 10 News on Tuesday.

“What we’ve proposed is the largest wind-battery combined power in the world,” CEO Jeff Grybowski said.

Grybowski plans to add 18 to 24 wind turbines about 20 miles off the coast of New Bedford — and they’re planning on to partner with an industry power-player: Tesla

Tesla’s new battery technology will store wind farm energy. The company’s founder, Elon Musk, recently visited Rhode Island

“So, it really helps us maximize the value of all that wind power,” said Grybowski.

The wind-farm energy could power about 80,000 Massachusetts households every year.

“But again, this a price competition,” said Grybowski.

The project, if approved, would be ready by 2023 to 2024.

NBC 10 asked Grybowski how many years it would take to bring the cost down for residents because of the initial investment.

“I think from day one, we think this will be a price-competitive project,” said Grybowski.

He also said it’s likely the wind-turbines won’t be seen from shore.

Deepwater Wind is hoping their off-shore wind farm will be a part of that mix for years to come.

It’s also unlikely any of the project bids will be subsidized.

NIU staff member’s new children’s book explores the science of solar energy

By Northern Illinois University

July 11, 2017

Read the original article Here

On July 5, Gillian King-Cargile, director of NIU’s STEM Read program in the P-20 Center, released her new children’s book, The Toy and the Test Drive. The book is the third installment in the Stuffed Bunny Science Adventure Series published by NIU Press. It explores concepts of solar power and potential and kinetic energy in a fast-paced children’s narrative designed to engage young readers.

“If we can create fun, exciting picture books that will get kids interested in the characters and the pictures, then science is exciting for kids who don’t necessarily see themselves as scientists or engineers,” King-Cargile says. “The fiction books might spark their interest in a way that more traditional non-fiction books might not.”

The book includes an interview with Seth Darling, a Nanoscientist working at Argonne National Laboratory whose work focuses on next-generation solar energy devices and solar energy systems, among other topics. Darling was a science consultant on the book.

King-Cargile is excited to release a book that addresses solar energy right now. “In a time when green energy is under attack, it’s important to keep ideas about alternative energies alive in our education system,” she says.

The Stuffed Bunny Science Adventure Series arose as a partnership between King-Cargile and the P-20 Center’s STEM Read program. The series is designed to teach science, technology, engineering, and math concepts aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)..

The STEM Read website (stemread.com) provides free lesson plans, video games and other activities for each book that parents and teachers can use to further engage children in the science behind the stories. Hands-on activities, such as building a solar oven and making s’mores, bring the science of solar energy alive for children.

Jeffrey R. S. Brownson, associate professor of energy and mineral engineering at Pennsylvania State University, praises the book: “This is a fun story that provides a good introduction to the science and engineering concepts surrounding solar energy.”

King-Cargile will be presenting readings and activities for children at the following times and locations.

  • 4:30 PM on Wednesday, July 12 at the Maple Park Public Library
  • 10:00 AM on Thursday, July 13 at the Cortland Community Library
  • 10:30 AM on Monday, July 17 at the DeKalb Public Library

The readings are free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase. Proceeds from the book sales benefit STEM Read’s programs for readers of all ages.

For more information, contact Gillian King Cargile at 815-753-6784 or gkingcargile@niu.edu.

Summer Movie Night: WALL-E is an adorable way to teach kids (and adults) about environmentalism!

Animation. Cutesy romantic plot line. Futuristic setting. Feel-good ending- this movie is set up as something entertaining for the kids to watch, but ends up being just as engaging for every age. Then again, as a movie produced by Disney & Pixar, that’s about par. Yet the message is rather unique for their style of movies; instead of focusing on anthropomorphic animals and friendly human companions, or kids off on an adventure, or the major plot point centering around love and family, this film focuses on something else entirely.

There’s not much dialogue in WALL-E, and it was originally planned to have next to none. This makes sense when you consider that the movie centers around non-speaking robots who communicate largely on noises, movement, expressions, and perhaps a few “words” that rely on intonation instead of conversation or sentence pattern. But it’s the human subplot that really stops to make you think. Humanity as a whole are the villains at the movie’s start, as they’ve littered so much on Earth that there’s no space or resources left to live on, and now subside in a spaceship where they no longer need to walk thanks to technology and have all become obese and trapped behind screens due to their lifestyles. Now i’m not dissing technology (I can only write and publish this article thanks to modern miracles such as wifi), but to become so dependent upon it as to physically atrophy and to no longer even walk by oneself is quite the situation. And the humans in this movie use technology as an escape- deserting Earth without really knowing if or when it will be inhabitable again, and living in ignorant bliss- sound familiar at all?

Amongst robot antics, the movie ends on a happy note, with humanity reconnecting with nature and with each other sans technology and sand disregard for their home; but on a realistic scale, the happy end wouldn’t hasten to arrive. It may not be our future, or even our kids’ future, but we are headed down a path not dissimilar to that portrayed for humanity in the movie. The sooner we take action, the less of an inevitability this path becomes and the better of a chance we have to preserve what little nature we have left, instead of losing it all entirely. But that’s more my musings than the movie; Pixar keeps things colorful and optimistic, and I love this film for the sense of hope it instills even in the face of such a self-made future.

Check out Vox’s piece along the same lines for more thoughts on the movie’s message!

By Danica Bergmann