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POWER TALK
LETTERS
Brewing Mesquite Tea
RE: Letter writers’ ongoing discussion about mesquite: My wife and I look at the mesquite tree as our food tree. We strip off about a handful of leaves from several trees until we have about a gallon of leaves. We place them into a plastic bag and fluff them one to two times a day until they are dry. They make a good green tea.
After the beans have matured and fallen off the tree, they can be harvested and ground into flour for cookies, fry bread, pancakes, etc. My wife cooked the beans into syrup, I think, equal to Log Cabin Syrup. We have also made mesquite wine. In my research, I have found instead of using the wood, use the bean to barbecue your meat.
Larry Dunbar
Cooke County Electric Cooperative
Birds Shouldn’t Be a Concern
Subject: John Abrams in his (August 2008) letter about windmills generating electricity and killing birds. I’ve never seen a windmill kill a bird; however, I have seen plenty of birds killed by automobiles. Perhaps John should stop driving his car and mount a campaign for the rest of us to do likewise. Windmill-generated electricity is a safe, clean way to help with the energy problem we are now facing. I was pleased to read in this morning’s Corpus Christi paper that the co-op has signed on to the wind generators on the King Ranch.
Edward Otti
Nueces Electric Cooperative
Trough Technology Overlooked
Your solar article (July 2008) seems to be oblivious to the day-in and day-out solar thermal power plants of the parabolic trough design. We have partnered in the past with the Sandia Nation Laboratories and National Renewable Electric Laboratories in making this type of green power more efficient for the last few decades while turning a profit for the investors year after year. The newest solar thermal power using the parabolic design was put online earlier this year in Boulder, Nevada, by a few of my former coworkers who now work for Acciona.
Many more plants are in the planning stages. I believe the closest to completion is south of Phoenix, Arizona. I just wanted to point out that in our own country, we have demonstrated the feasibility of solar power for more than two decades, and it is not centered around the tower receiver design. Thanks for listening and writing the story about solar power in your magazine. I hope to hear about many, many more.
Gordon “Solar Homer Simpson” Bishoff
Control Room Operator
Kramer Junction Solar Thermal Power Plants
Mojave Desert, California
Idle Alone, Not in Traffic
Re: Your article on “Don’t idle away your time and money”:
All the “experts” are wrong, again. Their advice is based only on what is good for one individual, and not what is good for everyone.
The suggestions to accelerate and decelerate slowly is fine in the country but will lead to overall more gasoline consumption in urban areas in the long run.
The article suggested that one might save if they shut off the engine when they are going to idle longer than 30 seconds. In already congested urban areas, that will only contribute to gas consumption.
Traffic lights are generally timed to maximize traffic flow through an intersection. When the light turns green, if one would accelerate normally--not jackrabbit and not slowly--more cars can make it through the light, thus fewer cars idling by being caught behind you when the light changes. The more cars that follow the “expert” advice, the longer the commute time for everyone behind them, thus more idling by those behind them, thus more fuel consumed, thus more pollution.
Patrick H. Bell
Austin
COPPER GRINCH STEALS CHRISTMAS
We know copper thieves are pulling down utility lines, gutting air-conditioning units, raiding homes under construction and threatening the lives of people on life support. Now they’ve stolen 15,000 feet of underground wiring that provides the magical lighting on Austin’s Trail of Lights. Approximately $85,000 worth of copper disappeared from Zilker Park in August. The thieves pulled up manhole covers to get to wiring.
Leaders say they will transfer money from some other key program to ensure that the annual Christmas event is lighted in its usual style. So Austin is joining many other towns and cities that are making it harder to access underground wiring.
Meanwhile, Wood County Electric Cooperative (WCEC) in East Texas has turned to technology to foil the ever-growing plague of copper thieves. WCEC is adding DataDot markers to property throughout its distribution system to help identify stolen property. The microdots, no larger than a piece of glitter, are laser etched with specific codes registered to the cooperative. While very hard to see with the naked eye, the presence of DataDots can be detected through the use of a special kit, which only takes seconds to use.
“We believe this product will offer WCEC a technological advantage, and we hope it makes anyone think twice before vandalizing our system. Their actions are causing dangerous conditions for the public, which cannot be tolerated,” said Debbie Robinson, general manager and CEO of the cooperative.
SUPER EASY AND SUPER CHEAP
This long, hot and dry summer is coming to a close. So why not take time this fall to prep for next summer? You will be ahead of the game and wisely water-thrifty by using the lowly soaker hose and faucet timers for all your beds and trees, soaking the ground rather than using sprinklers, where water is subject to evaporation.
Materials needed: soaker hoses in 25- or 50-foot lengths, garden staples and mulch. Faucet timers are optional.
The three easy steps:
1. Snake the soaker hoses around the roots of the chosen vegetation.
2. Pin the soaker hoses down with garden staples—steel wire bent into “U” shapes about 6 inches long.
3. Cover with mulch to a depth of 3 to 4 inches, leaving the hose end connector showing for hookup to your regular hose whenever you want to water.
Voila! You now have a water-wise, zoned irrigation system. How easy is that?
HAPPENINGS
“Howdy, folks!” Big Tex, all 52 feet of him, is greeting millions of visitors to the State Fair of Texas for the 56th consecutive year. From fried corn dogs and midway rides to livestock, car, dog and light shows, the fair offers something for every age.
For 24 days every year, the fair—which runs through October 19 at the 277-acre Fair Park in Dallas—becomes the fried food capital of Texas, serving up such delicacies as fried Twinkies, fried guacamole and even fried Coke. Don’t get too full, though. You’ll want to ride the Texas Star Ferris wheel—at 212 feet tall, it’s the tallest in North America—and the Texas SkyWay, a gondola ride that spans 1,800 feet from one end of the midway to the other.
Stick around each evening for the Starlight Parade that features colorful floats, glittering costumes and giant puppets.
For college football fans, it doesn’t get any bigger than the Red River Rivalry: The University of Texas and University of Oklahoma collide October 11 at the Cotton Bowl on Fair Park grounds.
For more information, call (214) 565-9931 or go to www.bigtex.com.
A TRAVELER’S HAVEN ON I-35
Modern stagecoaches roar by where the horse-drawn variety once stopped at the Stagecoach Inn in Salado. The 82-room inn and its restaurant draw weary, hungry travelers off adjacent Interstate 35 south of Temple. The site has been a stop for folks going between Waco and Austin since the early 1860s, when it opened as the Shady Villa.
After a renovation in the early 1940s, Dion and Ruth Van Bibber reopened the inn in 1943 as a tearoom. Their food became so popular that they stopped taking lodgers and focused on the restaurant. A nephew took over for them when they retired in 1959 and added the motel and other facilities.
Today, the tree-shaded complex draws guests on vacation and on group retreats.
—From Historic Hotels of Texas: A Traveler’s Guide, Texas A&M University Press, first edition, 2007
FUTURE TALK
Solar Power
Engineers are trying to perfect a large-scale solar technology that turns the sun’s energy into electricity—but doesn’t involve expensive semiconductor cells. Solar thermal power systems magnify the sun’s heat and direct it onto fluid-filled pipes, heating the fluid to boiling point. The super-hot liquid is then used to power a turbine generator.
You may be familiar with solar cells, which create electricity when photons from the sun force the transfer of electrons between layers of material. Solar trough plants, on the other hand, involve no chemical reactions. They use an array of mirrors to direct solar heat to a central pipeline filled with water. One such plant in the testing phases in Southern California could help power more than 100,000 homes using a square mile of collectors.
WHO KNEW?
“You can save 100 kilowatt-hours (and money) a month by plugging major electronics into power strips—and turning them off when you leave the house.”
Popular Mechanics
March 2008
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