OIT Training Engineers For A Renewable Energy Future

ENERGY  OIT  EDUCATION 

By Rob Manning

Clackamas, OR  June 2, 2008 9:11 a.m.

Last week, OPB reported on a fledgling program in the Columbia Gorge focused on keeping up with the increasing demands of the wind energy industry.

Teachers helping turbines get technicians, you might say.

Before there was a wind program in The Dalles, the Oregon Institute of Technology had a renewable energy program underway. But it's also pretty new.  As Rob Manning reports, this month OIT will graduate the nation's first “renewable energy engineer.”

When you think ‘renewable energy’, maybe you picture wind turbines, or solar panels. Or maybe you think of circuit boards and motors. Try  test tubes and beakers.

It’s all about chemistry when it comes to the key dilemma facing renewable energy: storage. From energy sources like blowing wind to  sunbeams that come and go -- it all needs to be stored.  

OIT students on the Clackamas campus are trying to find the key through a chemical process called electrolysis.

Bob Bass: “I think the flaw here, in this particular experiment, you have an electrolyte that’s not conducive toward electrolysis. Unexpected result, but by reversing the polarity."

That’s Bob Bass, the director of renewable energy engineering. He explains that the goal is to produce hydrogen, which could possibly solve the storage dilemma.

Bob Bass: “So for instance, if you’re running a wind turbine at night, when there’s not a lot of load demand, say in the city, wind is blowing, you’d like to do something with that energy being produced. So perhaps you use that energy from the turbine to electrolyze water and turn it into hydrogen. Later, when the wind is down, you use that hydrogen to run a turbine, to match the demand of the day.”

Hydrogen fuel cells are one of the promising technologies that could help replace fossil fuels with alternatives that don’t produce greenhouse gases.

Fuel cell technology is  still in development, but it's not exactly  science fiction, either. That makes it a perfect field of study for aspiring engineers – and even basement chemists.

OIT student Tracy Faux frequently checks in on a neighbor who’s been perfecting hydrogen-as-fuel for everyday use.

Tracy Faux: “That’s his idea, anyway. Who knows where he’ll end up, by the time his lawnmower is running on hydrogen.”

Other student: “Oh, he’s trying to get it, he hasn’t done it yet.”

Tracy Faux: “He’s run the torch on it.”

The torch Faux mentioned is  a welding torch powered on hydrogen in a neighbor's Beaverton garage. 

And yes, if you're wondering, it is dangerous. Faux says there have been explosions. But stuff blew up in this lab, too.

Instructor Bob Bass recalls the misadventures of two of his students.

Bob Bass: “They had an unauthorized experiment last week, where they lit the produced gas.”

Dan Harrison: “That was an attempt to verify that in fact, hydrogen was being produced.”

Ryan Ness: “Verified.”

Bob Bass: “Verified, check. Yes.” < all laughing > 

Bob Bass: “That was an experiment that I only became aware of when there was a large explosion in the corner of the room.” < laughing>

Bob Bass: “Fortunately, they’d all put on their goggles in anticipation of the consequences of the experiment.”

On this day, those lab partners -- Dan Harrison and Ryan Ness -- are working on something a little less dangerous.

They plugged in a solar panel the size of a checkbook to see how much hydrogen that could make.  The general idea was to dial the electrical energy so far down that the reaction actually produces more energy than it uses.

In chemical terms, it’s called “over-unity.” But Dan Harrison says in real terms, it means very little hydrogen.

Dan Harrison: “The reaction rate is so slow, that we’re not going to be able to finish in this lab, so we’re going to our next class, and let this run through that, and check it at the end of the day. It’s just running really slow, which is why no one ever gets the over-unity efficiency.”

Energy experiements are more often rather  mundane attempts at efficiency, rather than big bangs of exploding hydrogen.

OIT senior, Mac Lewis says the best ways to reduce fossil fuel use are kind of ho-hum.

Mac Lewis: “It’s amazing how much every cheap, very easy things there are to do to save energy. That really surprised me, that there’s so much that people just don’t do because energy has been so cheap.”

Lewis graduates later this year, but he doesn’t have clear plans on what he’ll do professionally.

His classmate, Tim Bailey says the same thing. He’s about to become the first graduate of the first renewable energy engineering program in the country. But he’s not worried.

Tim Bailey: “I’ve talked to several different people in industry: the president of a local photovoltaics firm, someone in the wind power industry. They all said they’re looking for people and they’re really interested in what OIT has to offer.”

These students agree with OIT’s broad approach that ranges from solar panels through fuel cells and beyond. The subjects are broad – but the class size is small.

OIT is graduating only a handful of students this year. Next year, that number is expected to rise, but not by too much because of limited classroom space.

Meantime, since OIT started, other college programs have sprung up across the country. Meaning students from Montana and Minnesota won't have to travel to Oregon -- like Dan Harrison and Ryan Ness did -- to light their hydrogen.

Ryan Ness: “We got a little bit more than we bargained for.”

Dan Harrison: “It responded quite vigorously. I’d like to do it again, but I think we burned that bridge.”

More experiments await Ness and Harrison as OIT’s program continues this summer. Considering the explosive job potential in renewable energy, they should get to continue their experiments after graduation, as well.

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