|
|
1. Idle Farmlands Could Become Profitable Carbon Storage Banks |
by Jennifer Donovan, public relations director
Michigan's recently enacted renewable energy portfolio legislation sets new requirements for green energy production in the state. Michigan policymakers believe energy plantations could be a major source of biomass fuels. But could northern Michigan farmers earn a profit converting idle farmland to tree plantations as biomass energy crops?
Answering this question was the goal of Michigan Tech graduate student Chris Miller's master's degree thesis research. Miller and his advisor, Robert Froese, a professor in the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, examined whether aspen trees planted on idle farmland in Presque Isle County could be sold profitably as chips used as biomass for electric power generation.
"The Michigan Climate Action Council draft policy options note that biomass from energy crops is an important part of the renewable energy solution," Froese said. "But more importantly, putting idle lands back into production is a way to bring economic opportunities to northern Michigan communities."
Miller developed detailed cultivation and cost models for planting, tending and harvesting aspen trees and adapted existing models that predict forest growth to estimate the amount of chips that could be produced on lands of different quality. Though the current market price for coal and wood chips is low, Miller found that farmers should be able to turn a profit on the very best lands in the northern lower part of the state.
But the price of chips is just one of the potential revenues from biomass crop production, Miller said. Tree plantings not only produce biomass that can be harvested for fuel, but root growth and years of fallen leaves incorporated in the soil also store carbon from the atmosphere that was released from fossil fuels burned elsewhere.
"Michigan's Conservation and Climate Initiative allows farmers to plant trees and get credit for the carbon dioxide sequestered in plantation soils," Miller noted. "These credits can be sold on the Chicago Climate Exchange and will become more and more valuable in the future."
When Miller took carbon credits into consideration in his cost models, an entirely different picture emerged. He found that a net credit of only $6 per metric ton would make aspen plantations economically feasible on all of the lands studied in Presque Isle County, including lands of relatively low quality.
"Our research shows that we're surprisingly close to the tipping point where tree plantations on large areas of idle farmlands would be profitable," said Froese. "If chip prices increase because of increased demand for wood fiber from a number of bioenergy projects being developed in Michigan, this alone could be sufficient." |
|
|
2. Honors, Awards, Shows Grace Beckwith This Fall |
by Dennis Walikainen, senior editor
That's some sabbatical.
Mary Ann Beckwith, professor of visual and performing arts, has been very busy, especially considering she is on sabbatical this semester. First, she was elected to the Watercolor Honor Society of Watercolor USA, one of only 200 or so honored since the organization's founding in 1962.
Then, she won the Jack Richeson Award from Watercolor USA at an exhibit in Springfield, Mo. Next, she was honored by the National Watercolor Society at its 88th Annual Exhibition in Riverside, Calif. Finally, she's been chosen to exhibit at the Rocky Mountain National Watermedia 40th Annual Exhibit, where only 10 percent of entries were accepted.
The rest of the list of recent shows fills a sheet of paper, which can normally take an artist two or three years to achieve.
Teaching at Tech since 1973, Beckwith says, "I'm amazed at how everything is coming together in my art life and my teaching career. When I was made full professor, which was one of the highest honors of my life, I was energized. It was almost like a dare, to not sit back and relax, and it has been more than I dreamed."
She's also created many watercolors this year, including "Looking North," which celebrates the Keweenaw Peninsula, in the tradition of "Pilgrim River" and "Boston Creek." |
|
|
3. ME Alum to Appear on "Sci-Fi Science" |
by Karina Jousma, Tech Today student editor
Sam Barros '07 finished up another Hollywood stint over the summer. This time, Barros will be featured in two episodes of the Science Channel's new TV series "Sci-Fi Science." The show "pits scientists, engineers and particle physicists against the most bizarre tabloid accounts of the supernatural to learn the real science behind the crazy headlines. Unreal Stories, Real Science," according to the channel's description.
The first segment of the episode features Barros's research project, the Rail Gun--a device that employs electricity to magnetically accelerate a projectile to speeds that would be unattainable by any other means. Barros says, "The show talks about futuristic science and uses my Rail Gun to show what some of the weapons of the future could look like." He says the gun was fired several times in a lab for the cameras, and pictures are available at his website, www.powerlabs.org/ .
Professor Bill Predebon (MEEM) lent him lab space for his Rail Gun research, "for which I am forever grateful," Barros says.
The second segment was filmed in California at kVA Effects, a company where Barros was employed as a special effects engineer, and will premier a TV showing of a particle beam weapon. On his website, Barros says this segment features an all-new lightning gun produced by kVA Effects, "which just needs to be seen to be believed."
Episode one of Sci-Fi Science will air on the Science Channel Sunday, Oct. 26, at 9 p.m.; Monday, Oct. 27, at midnight; and Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 4 a.m. |
|
|
4. TechSelect 2009 Online Open Enrollment Coming Soon |
This year, eligible Michigan Tech employees will be able to select their 2009 benefit package online through Employee Self Service, a tool available for employees to review their employment, payroll and benefit information.
Look for more information and announcements in the next few weeks. |
|
|
5. Reminder: Fidelity Investments Consultations to Be Held Oct. 27, 28 |
|
Fidelity Investments will be on campus to conduct one-on-one consultations Monday, Oct. 27, and Tuesday, Oct. 28. To take advantage of this opportunity, make an appointment by calling 800-642-7131 or visiting www.fidelity.com/atwork/reservations . |
|
|
6. Teaching at Tech: Who's Teaching Whom? |
by William Kennedy, director, Center for Teaching, Learning and Faculty Development
It's probably a function of age, but the longer I ponder a wide range of teaching and learning issues, the more I can see the merits of the arguments of those with whom I once strongly disagreed. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about educational metrics, the means and methods we use to measure the relative success or failure of our educational programs.
Many parents and students measure educational success in purely utilitarian terms. A degree program is successful if, and only if, it results in the graduate getting a good job in their chosen field before or shortly after graduation. Though some academics might find it distasteful to think of our instructional efforts being so tightly aligned to a successful job search, it's hard to justify our disdain when vocational ends are the primary drivers for such a large number of students and the parents that help to support their attendance, not to mention one theme of our promotional efforts.
For years, I've asked classes of undergraduate students how many of them would, if given the opportunity, simply pay their tuition and receive their diploma without ever having to listen to a lecture, read a textbook or take a test, and then somehow get a job and take their chances that they could learn "on the fly" what they need to know to succeed in their chosen profession. In every case, all but one or two of the students in the room shoot their hands into the air indicating their assent.
False bravado? I'm not so sure, anymore. I believe many students sadly do see at least the academic portion of their undergraduate experience as a protracted period of boredom and frustration that needs to be endured in order to secure gainful employment and begin living the good life. I think that's why many students are so passive in class, why they cram for exams rather than seek to work more diligently and consistently to master course material deeply and richly, why they seek out crib files and scoop, and why some cruise in the wake of those more-industrious students when doing team projects.
I wonder if our own metrics have been influenced by some of these drivers. Many colleagues who are also long in the tooth tell me that they constantly feel the pressure to lower the bar. I routinely have graduate students who express dismay when a weekly reading assignment goes from 10 or 12 pages to 20 or 30 pages. I have to forcefully restrain myself from launching into a "When I was in graduate school. . ." tirade. Pedagogical histrionics accomplish nothing other than to further distance me from them.
I can't tell you how many times junior faculty members have expressed reservations about pushing the students too hard for fear of being hammered on their end-of the-term teaching evaluations.
The old chestnut about putting a frog in a pan and heating the water so slowly that the frog eventually becomes frog soup comes to mind. I wonder if teachers don't get weary over time, weary of pushing back against the tide of those who would prefer to just do what's necessary and nothing more, weary of defending high, but realistic, standards. Educators have actually come to the point of believing that passing paper-and-pencil exams is sufficient proof that a student has mastered an area of human thought sufficiently well to participate in that field of inquiry as a junior partner. Perhaps it's time to revisit the question of what's good enough. |
|
|
7. Free Chairs, Table in Graduate School |
The Graduate School has two beige chairs and a rectangular table with a brown top available for free.
If you are interested (or would like to take a look), contact Heather Suokas at hlsuokas@mtu.edu or 487-2327.
University property may only be transferred between departments; it may not be given or sold to individuals. |
|
|
