.

Ever volatile fuel prices, security of supply, renewable energy cost reductions and environmental-climate concerns are dramatically accelerating the demand for greener alternatives.

It has become a global imperative that we break our addiction to fossil fuels. Providing for the ever increasing energy and transportation needs of the planet is going to take a wide range of alternative energy sources, cleaner fuels, the smart grid and advanced storage solutions.

These technologies are finally establishing themselves in the energy mix and becoming mainstream .....an emerging multi trillion dollar market rapidly becoming one of the most significant industrial sectors this century. The future is bright for renewable energy sources and a greener sustainable world.

Archives

01 Jan - 31 Jan 2019
01 Jul - 31 Jul 2011
01 May - 31 May 2011
01 Mar - 31 Mar 2011
01 Feb - 28 Feb 2011
01 Jan - 31 Jan 2011
01 Dec - 31 Dec 2010
01 Oct - 31 Oct 2010
01 Sep - 30 Sep 2010
01 Aug - 31 Aug 2010
01 Jul - 31 Jul 2010
01 Jun - 30 Jun 2010
01 May - 31 May 2010
01 Apr - 30 Apr 2010
01 Mar - 31 Mar 2010
01 Feb - 28 Feb 2010
01 Dec - 31 Dec 2009
01 Nov - 30 Nov 2009
01 Oct - 31 Oct 2009
01 Sep - 30 Sep 2009
01 Aug - 31 Aug 2009
01 Jul - 31 Jul 2009
01 Jun - 30 Jun 2009
01 May - 31 May 2009
01 Apr - 30 Apr 2009
01 Mar - 31 Mar 2009
01 Feb - 28 Feb 2009
01 Jan - 31 Jan 2009
01 Dec - 31 Dec 2008
01 Oct - 31 Oct 2008
01 Sep - 30 Sep 2008
01 Aug - 31 Aug 2008
01 Jul - 31 Jul 2008
01 Jun - 30 Jun 2008
01 May - 31 May 2008
01 Apr - 30 Apr 2008
01 Mar - 31 Mar 2008
01 Feb - 28 Feb 2008
01 Jan - 31 Jan 2008
01 Dec - 31 Dec 2007
01 Nov - 30 Nov 2007
01 Oct - 31 Oct 2007
01 Sep - 30 Sep 2007
01 Aug - 31 Aug 2007







Links

Daily Alternative Energy News Updates
Recent Videos

Alternative Energy Sizing Calculators

Tag Key Word News Search

Article Archives

Last Comments


weblog_text - RSS-XML - ()

XML: RSS Feed 
XML: Atom Feed 

« GM bankruptcy - trans… | Home | GM sale gets OK from … »

Researchers use remote-controlled sensors to track pollutant loads from storms

29 06 09 - 15:39 Researchers use remote-controlled sensors to track pollutant loads from storms


By Deane Morrison




Minneapolis - The next cup of stale coffee you pour down the drain may end up as evidence. Not in a courtroom, but in a U of M study of how well Twin Cities sewers and waterways handle the loads of pollutants washed into them by storms.

Armed with a network of five wireless sensors stationed near the Twin Cities' Minnehaha Creek, researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Water Resources Center are monitoring - in real time - when and where storms wash road salt, lawn chemicals and other pollutants into area waterways.

Study leaders William Arnold and Miki Hondzo, both professors of civil engineering, hope to have 100 stations in the next five to 10 years. An expanded system could feed up-to-the-minute data to a Web site that recreational users of lakes and streams could use to plan their outings. It could also help urban designers tailor their plans to minimize the runoff of chemicals in local watersheds during a rain or allow farmers to decide the best times to apply fertilizers. Levels of nitrate from fertilizers and chloride from road salt tend to be low until rain washes them into waterways. The effects of rain can be dramatic, as shown by data from Minnehaha Creek and another metro-area stream, Shingle Creek, both of which empty into the Mississippi River.

"Concentrations of nitrate go up from about 200 micrograms per liter of water up to about 400 in Shingle Creek and from about 100 to 250 micrograms per liter in Minnehaha Creek," Arnold said.

But with the much larger volumes of water sweeping through the creeks, these concentrations add up to even more dramatic increases in the load, or amount of a pollutant passing a point on the stream bank every second.

"The nitrate load is two to five milligrams per second in dry periods and increases to 50 to 200 milligrams per second when it rains," Arnold said. "A student found that during a one-month period, two-thirds of the nitrate that entered Shingle Creek entered over just four days."

"There should not be caffeine in the water at all, as storm and sanitary sewers are supposed to be separated."

In contrast to the situation with nitrate, "concentrations of chloride actually drop when it rains," he said, "but loads increase from about one gram per second in dry periods to 10 to 50 grams per second during rainfall."

Of the five stations now monitoring water that drains into Minnehaha Creek, two are in "stormwater ponds" that collect street runoff and feed into the creek. Another monitors a channel connecting a small lake - Lake Pamela - to the creek. The last two monitor water above and below the point where the channel empties into the creek.

Mounted on tripods, the stations draw power from solar panels. Besides nitrate and salt, they monitor pH, the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water (high is good), temperature, turbidity and depth. Four of the sensors radio their data to a base station, which compiles the data and sends it overnight by cell phone to the university's St. Anthony Falls Laboratory for analysis.

When a storm breaks, students can program the system remotely to take readings as often as once a minute to be sure to catch the movement of pollutants at its peak.

"The sensors give better estimates of pollutant loads than traditional sampling," Arnold said. "We now have data every one to 30 minutes instead of twice a month."

In addition to the sensors, automatic samplers collect water as often as every 30 minutes during storms. Researchers take the samples back to the lab to analyze them for fecal coliforms, pesticides and caffeine.

Which brings us to that coffee tossed down the drain.

"There should not be caffeine in the water at all, as storm and sanitary sewers are supposed to be separated," Arnold said. "The presence of caffeine means there are either cross connections between the storm and sewer systems or leaky sewer pipes - and when it rains, the sewage makes it into creeks along with the storm water."

Unfortunately, caffeine does get into the creeks. Levels jump from less than 20 nanograms per liter in dry periods to 70 (Minnehaha) or 500 (Shingle) nanograms per liter during a rainfall, Arnold said.

On the bright side, the researchers have found that storm water ponds in the Shingle Creek watershed remove pollutants from the water.

"This project is a great example of research that will move environmental monitoring to the next level and improve our understanding and management of water resources," Director Deb Swackhamer, of the Water Resources Center said. Used tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Trackback link:

Please enable javascript to generate a trackback url






 

weblog_text - more - ()

Researchers use remote-controlled sensors to track pollutant loads from storms

Monday 29 June 2009 at 3:39 pm Researchers use remote-controlled sensors to track pollutant loads from storms


By Deane Morrison




Minneapolis - The next cup of stale coffee you pour down the drain may end up as evidence. Not in a courtroom, but in a U of M study of how well Twin Cities sewers and waterways handle the loads of pollutants washed into them by storms.

Armed with a network of five wireless sensors stationed near the Twin Cities' Minnehaha Creek, researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Water Resources Center are monitoring - in real time - when and where storms wash road salt, lawn chemicals and other pollutants into area waterways.

Study leaders William Arnold and Miki Hondzo, both professors of civil engineering, hope to have 100 stations in the next five to 10 years. An expanded system could feed up-to-the-minute data to a Web site that recreational users of lakes and streams could use to plan their outings. It could also help urban designers tailor their plans to minimize the runoff of chemicals in local watersheds during a rain or allow farmers to decide the best times to apply fertilizers. more