Wind for Schools: Fostering the Human Talent Supply Chain for a 20% Wind Energy Future

As the United States dramatically expands wind energy deployment, the industry is challenged with developing a skilled workforce and addressing public resistance. Wind Powering America’s Wind for Schools project addresses these issues by:• Developing Wind Application Centers (WACs) at universities; WAC students assist in implementing school wind turbines and participate in wind courses• Installing small wind turbines at community “host” schools• Implementing teacher training with interactive curricula at each host school

Mathematical modelling of insect oviposition behaviour

This thesis is concerned with various aspects of insect oviposition behaviour. In the first chapter published mathematical models developed to understand optimal insect oviposition behaviour are reviewed. In these models it is assumed that selection favours females that maximize their offspring's total reproductive success. In the second chapter a different approach to the optimization problem is presented. It is shown that the quantity that is maximized in the models that were discussed in the review is not well defined. It is suggested that instead the total expected resource gain that can be acquired by a female's offspring should be used as a fitness measure. The main reason for this is that if fitness is defined as the ability to pass genes on to all future generations, maximizing the fitness measure used in the existing models would not completely resolve the recursive nature of this definition. The third chapter investigates the effects of density-dependent fecundity on population size. It is assumed that females lay only one single clutch and that the size of the clutch is directly related to the female's fecundity. An iterative model is derived to calculate variation in population size. An analysis of the model and subsequent simulation predict that low levels of competition among larvae is likely to cause chaotic behaviour and overpopulation of the environment whereas high competition is likely to have a. stabilizing effect on population size. A fourth chapter briefly summarizes an experiment conducted on Pieris brassi-cae to measure variation in egg size and to estimate larval surviral rates

SemNet: the knowledge representation of lolita

Many systems of Knowledge Representation exist, but none were designed specifically for general purpose large scale natural language processing. This thesis introduces a set of metrics to evaluate the suitability of representations for this purpose, derived from an analysis of the problems such processing introduces. These metrics address three broad categories of question: Is the representation sufficiently expressive to perform its task? What implications has its design on the architecture of the system using it? What inefficiencies are intrinsic to its design? An evaluation of existing Knowledge Representation systems reveals that none of them satisfies the needs of general purpose large scale natural language processing. To remedy this lack, this thesis develops a new representation: SemNet. SemNet benefits not only from the detailed requirements analysis but also from insights gained from its use as the core representation of the large scale general purpose system LOLITA (Large-scale Object-based Linguistic Interactor, Translator, and Analyser). The mapping process between Natural language and representation is presented in detail, showing that the representation achieves its goals in practice

Wind Energy Workforce Development: A Roadmap to a Sustainable Wind Industry

As the United States moves toward greatly expanded wind energy use, the need for skilled workers at all industry levels has been repeatedly identified as a critical issue. Additionally, if the industry and nation wish to capitalize on this rapid industry growth by becoming a major international green technology exporter, reversing current educational trends away from science, engineering, and technical skills must be achieved. This poster provides an overview of the educational infrastructure and expected industry needs through a discussion of the activities to train workers while addressing issues for each of the education sectors, leading to the development of an educational infrastructure to support wind technology

Onward, Christian Soldiers

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Wind for Schools: Developing Educational Programs to Train a New Workforce and the Next Generation of Wind Energy Experts (Poster)

As the United States dramatically expands wind energy deployment, the industry is challenged with developing a skilled workforce and addressing public resistance. Wind Powering America's Wind for Schools project addresses these issues by: Developing Wind Application Centers (WACs) at universities; installing small wind turbines at community "host" schools; and implementing teacher training with interactive curricula at each host school

Status of Wind-Diesel Applications in Arctic Climates: Preprint

The rising cost of diesel fuel and the environmental regulation for its transportation, use, and storage, combined with the clear impacts of increased arctic temperatures, is driving remote communities to examine alternative methods of providing power. Over the past few years, wind energy has been increasingly used to reduce diesel fuel consumption, providing economic, environmental, and security benefits to the energy supply of communities from Alaska to Antarctica. This summary paper describes the current state of wind-diesel systems, reviews the operation of wind-diesel plants in cold climates, discusses current research activities pertaining to these systems, and addresses their technical and commercial challenges. System architectures, dispatch strategies, and operating experience from a variety of wind-diesel systems in Alaska will be reviewed. Specific focus will also be given to the control of power systems with large amounts of wind generation and the complexities of replacing diesel engine waste heat with excess wind energy, a key factor in assessing power plants for retrofit. A brief overview of steps for assessing the viability of retrofitting diesel power systems with wind technologies will also be provided. Because of the large number of isolated diesel minigrids, the market for adding wind to these systems is substantial, specifically in arctic climates and on islands that rely on diesel-only power generation

Wind Powering America's Wind for Schools Project: Summary Report

This report provides an overview of the U.S. Department of Energy, Wind Powering America, Wind for Schools project. It outlines teacher-training activities and curriculum development; discusses the affiliate program that allows school districts and states to replicate the program; and contains reports that provide an update on activities and progress in the 11 states in which the Wind for Schools project operates

Distributed Wind Market Applications

Distributed wind energy systems provide clean, renewable power for on-site use and help relieve pressure on the power grid while providing jobs and contributing to energy security for homes, farms, schools, factories, private and public facilities, distribution utilities, and remote locations. America pioneered small wind technology in the 1920s, and it is the only renewable energy industry segment that the United States still dominates in technology, manufacturing, and world market share. The series of analyses covered by this report were conducted to assess some of the most likely ways that advanced wind turbines could be utilized apart from large, central station power systems. Each chapter represents a final report on specific market segments written by leading experts in this field. As such, this document does not speak with one voice but rather a compendium of different perspectives, which are documented from a variety of people in the U.S. distributed wind field

Technology, Performance, and Market Report of Wind-Diesel Applications for Remote and Island Communities: Preprint

This paper describes the current status of wind-diesel technology and its applications, the current research activities, and the remaining system technical and commercial challenges. System architectures, dispatch strategies, and operating experience from a variety of wind-diesel systems will be discussed, as well as how recent development to explore distributed energy generation solutions for wind generation can benefit from the performance experience of operating systems. The paper also includes a detailed discussion of the performance of wind-diesel applications in Alaska, where 10 wind-diesel stations are operating and additional systems are currently being implemented. Additionally, because this application represents an international opportunity, a community of interest committed to sharing technical and operating developments is being formed. The authors hope to encourage this expansion while allowing communities and nations to investigate the wind-diesel option for reducing their dependence on diesel-driven energy sources