Prairie Hill installs wind turbine
RURAL ROCA — About a dozen giddy, young children wearing rubber boots stand in a field, their backs warmed by the July sun.
Their eyes are fixed on a long metal tower lying on the ground before them.
Teachers and other adults talk to the children about nature and wind energy, trying to keep the young ones busy until the big truck with an even bigger crane arrives.
It’s 9:15 a.m.
Once the truck arrives at Prairie Hill Learning Center, 15 minutes south of Lincoln on U.S. 77, workers will attach blades to the top of the 120-foot tower and lift it with the crane.
But first, the truck has to get to here.
“It’s done,” says Lyn Dyck, referring to the tower that will become part of a wind turbine. “It’s ready to go.”
This day has been years in the making.
The wind turbine, which cost the school $62,000 to install, is the final addition to the Montessori school’s Renewable Energy Education Center, which students and staff moved into in June 2006.
The center boasts several environmental features, including:
* Photovoltaic solar panels.
* 670 square feet of south-facing windows for winter heating, day lighting and domestic hot water.
* Straw bale insulation inside 18-inch thick walls to reduce heating and cooling needs significantly and make the building “storm safe.”
* School officials also plan to build above-ground basins to collect rainwater for use on gardens and lawns and for animal care and other nonfood uses.
The wind turbine, installed July 9, is expected to produce 1,100-kilowatt hours a month.
“We’re hoping that, on a windy day, it will at least have enough electricity for our new Renewable Energy Education Center,” said Dyck, co-founder of the school and a teacher at Prairie Hill.
The addition of the wind turbine makes Prairie Hill the state’s first wind- and solar-powered school, Dyck said.
The school is open to children - 18 months old to eighth grade.
As they waited for the crane to arrive at the school last week, children stayed busy, doing all the normal summer activities that children at the school do.
Three students raised the school’s flag.
Two young children filled buckets of water from a well.
Sitting next to a barn in a circle, a group of students sang “This Land is Your Land.”
At 10 a.m., the sheep shearer arrived.
The demonstration originally was scheduled so as not to coincide with the crane’s arrival.
As the minutes ticked by and still no crane, however, school staff decided to go ahead with the sheep-shearing program.
While Mark Littlefield of Columbus sheared thick sheets of black wool from a complacent sheep, students clapped and cheered.
As the demonstration ended, word came from the pasture where the wind turbine was being erected that the crane had arrived.
Standing beside a group of students in the pasture, Dyck spoke with some students.
“Have you ever seen a crane like this before?” she asked.
“No,” most answered.
“I have,” one girl answered.
Not far away, workers from Dixon Power Systems attached blades to the wind turbine and began preparing the cables that would help steady the tower as it was being raised.
A group of older Prairie Hill summer campers sat in the shade of a grove of trees watching the workers.
They joked and chatted, while two younger boys made whistles from blades of grass.
After about half an hour, Jon Dixon of Dixon Power Systems called the students to the wind turbine to talk to them about it and answer questions.
“On average, how much will it generate a day?” one boy asked.
“It’ll vary, but somewhere around 40 kilowatts a day,” Dixon answered.
After the question-and-answer session, Dixon told the students to back up at least 150 feet from the tower, in case something go wrong.
As he watched the crane lift the tower into its base, Devon Crews, 14, expressed happiness at finally getting to see the wind turbine built.
“We’re dependent on the oil, and this is a big step toward finding an alternative fuel source that I hope other people will be able to switch to.”
Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.
Facts about wind power
* Wind power generation capacity in the United States now totals 9,149 megawatts, which is still less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity generation.
* The total amount of electricity that could potentially be generated from wind in the United States has been estimated at 10,777 billion kilowatt-hours annually — three times the electricity generated in the U.S. today.
* Nebraska ranks sixth among the states for wind energy potential and it is estimated that the state has the potential to produce 868 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.
Source: American Wind Energy Association
Their eyes are fixed on a long metal tower lying on the ground before them.
Teachers and other adults talk to the children about nature and wind energy, trying to keep the young ones busy until the big truck with an even bigger crane arrives.
It’s 9:15 a.m.
Once the truck arrives at Prairie Hill Learning Center, 15 minutes south of Lincoln on U.S. 77, workers will attach blades to the top of the 120-foot tower and lift it with the crane.
But first, the truck has to get to here.
“It’s done,” says Lyn Dyck, referring to the tower that will become part of a wind turbine. “It’s ready to go.”
This day has been years in the making.
The wind turbine, which cost the school $62,000 to install, is the final addition to the Montessori school’s Renewable Energy Education Center, which students and staff moved into in June 2006.
The center boasts several environmental features, including:
* Photovoltaic solar panels.
* 670 square feet of south-facing windows for winter heating, day lighting and domestic hot water.
* Straw bale insulation inside 18-inch thick walls to reduce heating and cooling needs significantly and make the building “storm safe.”
* School officials also plan to build above-ground basins to collect rainwater for use on gardens and lawns and for animal care and other nonfood uses.
The wind turbine, installed July 9, is expected to produce 1,100-kilowatt hours a month.
“We’re hoping that, on a windy day, it will at least have enough electricity for our new Renewable Energy Education Center,” said Dyck, co-founder of the school and a teacher at Prairie Hill.
The addition of the wind turbine makes Prairie Hill the state’s first wind- and solar-powered school, Dyck said.
The school is open to children - 18 months old to eighth grade.
As they waited for the crane to arrive at the school last week, children stayed busy, doing all the normal summer activities that children at the school do.
Three students raised the school’s flag.
Two young children filled buckets of water from a well.
Sitting next to a barn in a circle, a group of students sang “This Land is Your Land.”
At 10 a.m., the sheep shearer arrived.
The demonstration originally was scheduled so as not to coincide with the crane’s arrival.
As the minutes ticked by and still no crane, however, school staff decided to go ahead with the sheep-shearing program.
While Mark Littlefield of Columbus sheared thick sheets of black wool from a complacent sheep, students clapped and cheered.
As the demonstration ended, word came from the pasture where the wind turbine was being erected that the crane had arrived.
Standing beside a group of students in the pasture, Dyck spoke with some students.
“Have you ever seen a crane like this before?” she asked.
“No,” most answered.
“I have,” one girl answered.
Not far away, workers from Dixon Power Systems attached blades to the wind turbine and began preparing the cables that would help steady the tower as it was being raised.
A group of older Prairie Hill summer campers sat in the shade of a grove of trees watching the workers.
They joked and chatted, while two younger boys made whistles from blades of grass.
After about half an hour, Jon Dixon of Dixon Power Systems called the students to the wind turbine to talk to them about it and answer questions.
“On average, how much will it generate a day?” one boy asked.
“It’ll vary, but somewhere around 40 kilowatts a day,” Dixon answered.
After the question-and-answer session, Dixon told the students to back up at least 150 feet from the tower, in case something go wrong.
As he watched the crane lift the tower into its base, Devon Crews, 14, expressed happiness at finally getting to see the wind turbine built.
“We’re dependent on the oil, and this is a big step toward finding an alternative fuel source that I hope other people will be able to switch to.”
Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.
Facts about wind power
* Wind power generation capacity in the United States now totals 9,149 megawatts, which is still less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity generation.
* The total amount of electricity that could potentially be generated from wind in the United States has been estimated at 10,777 billion kilowatt-hours annually — three times the electricity generated in the U.S. today.
* Nebraska ranks sixth among the states for wind energy potential and it is estimated that the state has the potential to produce 868 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.
Source: American Wind Energy Association
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