Waste diversion efforts at Vail Resorts ski areas
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Elcano 500 electric expedition sailboat
Author, sailor and event organizer Jimmy Cornell has just launched his latest expedition sailboat, this time a fully electric 48-ft. Outremer 4X called Elcano 500, and next month he plans to set off from Seville, Spain, to celebrate and follow the route of the first circumnavigation, completed in 1522 by the Spanish sailor Juan Sebastian Elcano.
Elcano set off from Seville in 1519 with Ferdinand Magellan, taking command of the expedition when Magellan was killed in the Philippines, and completing the round-the-world voyage the following year.
According to CruisingWorld.com, Cornell is calling his latest adventure the Elcano Project. The boat's name, besides paying homage to the first circumnavigator, is a play on "Electricity. Carbon. No!"
The voyage will follow the original course, stopping in Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Puerto Julian and passing through the Magellan Strait. From there, Elcano will set off across the Pacific, visiting Puka Puka in the Cook Islands, Guam, and the Philippines, including the island of Mactan, where Magellan was killed.
From there, Elcano will visit several other Pacific islands, cross the South Indian Ocean, round the Cape of Good Hope and return to Seville. The 30,000-mile voyage is expected to take less than a year.
Learn more about the project at www.cornellsailing.com
Travel With Purpose, A Field Guide to Voluntourism
Travel with a purpose and make a difference while you see the world? The book Travel With Purpose by Jeff Blumenfeld on Rowman & Littlefield includes stories of inspiration from everyday volun-tourists, all of whom have advice about the best way to approach that first volunteer vacation, from Las Vegas to Nepal, lending a hand in nonprofits ranging from health care facilities, animal shelters and orphanages to impoverished schools. Case studies are ripped from the pages of Expedition News, including the volunteer work of Dooley Intermed, Himalayan Stove Project, and even a volunteer dinosaur dig in New Jersey.
Read excerpts and "Look Inside" at: tinyurl.com/voluntourismbook @purpose_book
Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort located in the heart of the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts constructed a 2.3 megawatt community solar facility located on 12 acres of the ski area and resort's property, owned and operated by nexamp. Renewable energy is not new to the resort – back in 2007 it was the first ski area in North America to generate power from its own GE 1.5 MW wind turbine.
The solar project significantly expanded Jiminy Peak's renewable energy program, while extending the environmental and cost-saving benefits of solar to up to 200 neighboring homes and small businesses. By adding the solar power facility to Jiminy Peak's existing wind turbine, 75 kWh cogeneration unit, and extensive conservation efforts, the resort can claim to be one of the few resorts in the U.S. powered 100% by renewable energy and one of the most sustainable energy ski resorts.
Solar and Wind Energy
The solar project significantly expanded Jiminy Peak's renewable energy program. All power generated by the 7,500-module solar facility is exported to the grid. Resort president Tyler Fairbank said, "We receive net metering credits in return. Half the net metering credits are utilized by Jiminy Peak and the balance by about 200 neighboring homes and small businesses in the local area."
The resort uses all the power generated by the wind turbine according to Jim Van Dyke, vice president of environmental sustainability, and a veteran 43-year employee who commented “The turbine handles 33% of our energy needs on an annual basis, up to 66% in the winter when the winds blow strongest. Any excess energy is sent out to the grid and Jiminy receives a net metering credit, which is used when we need to purchase energy from the grid. So in that fashion we now use 100% of the electricity that the turbine generates.”
Lighting, Recycling, and Cogeneration
Jiminy has upgraded to more efficient lighting and programmable thermostats in the lodges, and the resort more than doubled the energy efficiency of the lights used on the slopes for night skiing. In the Country Inn, 658 lights were converted to LEDs to be more efficient and 230 slopeside lights have been replaced with lighter, brighter, more energy efficient LED lighting covering 60 percent of the mountain. The difference has been likened to that between a manila envelope and a white envelope.
Waste oil is taken from snowmaking compressors, grooming machines, and all vehicles to heat the Mountain Operations building using approximately 200 gallons of waste oil per year and the process avoids the storage and disposal of old used oil.
Jiminy Peak installed a cogeneration unit in the Country Inn. The unit uses propane gas that powers a turbine that in turn produces hot water for use throughout the Inn. This hot water also provides the heating source for the central core of the building that includes the year-round outdoor pool, hot tubs, and John Harvard's Restaurant & Brewery, too.
Using the heat from two snowmaking compressors to heat 34,000 square feet of space in 3 Village Center buildings avoids the need of an equivalent of 63,800 kWh.
The towel and sheet program in the lodge rooms saves about 25,000 gallons of water a year by only washing the sheets and towels when requested by guests staying for more than one night. They've eliminated the use of toxic cleaning agents and only use green, biodegradable solvents and cleaners. Conversion to waterless urinals in bathrooms of several buildings and at JJ's Lodge saves 40,000 gallons of water per urinal.
Snowmaking
Zephyr Wind Turbine is a selfie magnet atop Jiminy Peak!
Jiminy averages 615 acre feet of snow per winter using machine-made snow and approximately 123,000,000 gallons of water. The entire 450-gun snowmaking arsenal was replaced with energy-efficient Snowgun Technologies “Sledgehammer” snowguns. The new guns convert more water with less air and at warmer temperatures than traditional snowguns. This means the resort runs air compressors for fewer hours, consuming less electricity, while producing 100% more snow (assuming Mother Nature cooperates).
For example, the snowmaking system's old technology would have required 4,566,100 kWh ten years ago versus 1,368,326 kWh today. The annual savings is 70% in energy or 3,197,774 kWh.
Slope Grooming
Jiminy Peak has equipped two PistenBully groomers with digital mapping and GPS to tell drivers exactly how much snow is beneath their treads, blades and rollers. The maps are based on aerial photography captured during summer, and are accurate to within two inches (5 cm). “Rather than eyeball it, the SNOWSat technology allows us to more precisely gauge depth and place more snow where the cover is thin, and less where the cover is already sufficient for skiing or riding. This means fewer passes by groomers,” Van Dyke explains, noting that Jiminy Peak is one of only a few resorts in the U.S. using the new technology.
Speaking of groomers, Jiminy Peak is purchasing the new energy efficient Pisten Bully 600 E+ snowcat, one of three in use in the northeast. Kassbohrer’s Pisten Bully “Green Machine” 600E+ is the world’s first groomer with a diesel-electric drive. One of the most significant advancements in snowgrooming technology over the past two decades, the 600 E+ uses a diesel engine to drive two electric generators which power electric motors that turn the tracks and the snow tiller. It reduces the emission of nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxides by 20%, produces 99% fewer sooty particles and registers a 20% fuel savings over their standard 600 model.
Transportation
There are plans at Jiminy Peak for the installation of four EV charging stations, working with an Albany, N.Y. EV Drivers Club, with support from Tesla. Van Dyke notes that EV car owners, in addition to saving on fossil fuels, will be recharging with renewable electricity generated by both solar and wind.
Jiminy Peak has won environmental recognition, but awards are not why Jiminy Peak Resorts conserves and invests in renewable energy. Fairbank reflected, "Conservation is practiced every day at Jiminy Peak. It's part of our corporate DNA. We have an in-house energy management team that conducts an on-going and aggressive program to help us to identify and curtail energy waste and research ways to source 100 percent of our energy from renewable resources. They are constantly evaluating opportunities for savings. Our renewable efforts have come from facilities we've built and we’re proud for reaching 100% of our electricity energy, which is from local, on site-generated renewable resources."
In early September during President Obama's visit to Alaska, an op-ed piece in the Alaska Dispatch News was written by 4-time Olympian and 3-time World Cup Cross Country Ski Sprint Champion Kikkan Randall. Kikkan grew up in Anchorage and wanted to opine about a topic she feels deeply about - climate change.
"Cross-country skiing is my job, my passion and my life. I'm an Alaskan, and like many Alaskans I got my first skis around the same time I learned to walk. To me, snow is family. Skiing, snowshoeing, sledding, and simply playing in the snow are how we form friendships as children, how we bond as families, how we connect as communities."
"This summer, hundreds of fires encompassing nearly five million acres burned across Alaska. People in the Lower 48 have a hard time believing this. They think of Eskimos and polar bears when they think of Alaska. Forest fires are for hot and dry places, for Colorado and Idaho and New Mexico. Increasingly, they are the norm up here, too. The patterns we knew as children are changing."
Randall recalled that as a child, she visited a local glacier remembering how cool it was to watch the glacier calve right there in front of her eyes. Thirty years later, that glacier is no longer visible from the visitor's center. Children visiting today can no longer experience that powerful natural force as she did.
In summer, Randall trains on the glacial snowfield above Girdwood, Alaska and has watched that glacier change before her eyes through the years. "Every year there are more crevasses, more runoff, more melting."
While racing on the World Cup circuit for nine years she's witnessed the global winter meltdown firsthand. "More than half of International Ski Federation (FIS) competitions are now held on machine-made snow. Even with snowmaking, however, national and international cross-country races are being canceled at an increasing rate because temperatures are not cold enough to make snow. You don't have to be a scientist to understand this.
Randall commented that Alaska has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the United States over the past 60 years. "We are on the front lines of change. Speak to the residents of Kotzebue or Kivalina about thawing permafrost, (which is especially problematic as it'll release toxic methane from lake bottoms), or the disappearance of sea ice and storm surges making relocation of all the residents an almost certainty."
During his visit, President Obama talked to locals when he traveled to Alaska and became the first sitting president to ever visit the Arctic Circle. He saw the impacts of climate change for himself. Randall hopes that Obama's trip to Alaska pushes him to make climate action a part of his legacy.
Obama had already begun to act with the Clean Power Plan announced in early August to begin cleaning up the nation's power plants, which are the source of 40% of American carbon emissions. Alaskan Senator Murkowski lobbied successfully to have Alaska exempted from the plan, with which every other state must comply.
Randall feels that Alaska should lead by example, not seek exemptions from climate action. "In Alaska, the replacement costs of public infrastructure from climate change could be as much as $6.1 billion over the next 20 years, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it will cost $125 million to relocate just one of the many villages impacted by rising sea levels. And the area burned by wildfires in Alaska is projected to double by mid-century and to triple by the end of the century."
"The social costs will be even greater. Native American culture, entire villages and ancestral hunting and fishing grounds, could be lost forever." Randall calls on Alaskans to show support for the Clean Power Plan and climate action.
Kikkan Randall has spent her life nurturing speed and she urges everyone to act fast to safeguard snow and winter and Alaska. "We must harness our collective power as citizens to make change. It's time to fly, to go fast."
Photo: Kikkan Randall Victory lap; US Ski Team