Page 2 University Daily Kansan, August 19, 1982
U.S. solar energy experiment to be conducted in Osage City
C. By ANDREW deVALPINE
D. Staff Reporter
Osage City is the epitome of small-town America. The business district is centered on one main street that unrolls from there and then crosses the railroad tracks.
About two miles north of town is an abandoned dump-10 acres of weeds
Old store fronts with tall windows on
the second stories are the dominant
architectural theme. Most of them look
built in and build when the town was
 founded in 1870.
The U.S. Department of Energy chose the dump from among 44 sites for a $4.6 million solar energy project, the only one of its kind in the world, said Al Marriot, manager of module and systems development in thermal power for Jet Propulsion Laboratories, Pasadena, Calif.
THE PURPOSE OF the experiment, he said, was to see how a power plant based on solar technology would operate in a real-life environment, and to see how well solar-generated power is integrated with an existing power source.
"We want to see how a total system interfaces with the regular utilities sys-net."
Osage City, population 2,800, about 50 miles southwest of Lawrence, currently uses natural gas and number 2 diesel from Thompson. Osage City mayor, said.
"We say we have the oldest municipal water plant in the state," Dempsey said.
Joe Hummerickhouse, who represented the town in persuading the Department of Energy to choose Osage City, said the fact that they produced their own power made them a more candidate, a thought echoed by Married
"Because they have their own gener-
ating experience and experience in
working from their own plant, it is a
very good site," he said.
Another reason was the climate.
"HERE IN KANSAS we have close to an average climate," Hummerick-house said.
The solar plant, as it is now funded, will consist of five or six parabolic dishes twelve meters in diameter, or will comprise almost 40 feet. Hummerkhorn house said.
Each dish is capable of producing 20 allowance of energy, for a total of 100 kilojoules.
The generating capacity for the existing power plant is 7000 kilowatts, Hummerickhouse said.
"So it's a drop in the bucket as far as our total energy concern," he said.
The original plan as proposed during the Carter administration, hoy; ever, could have supplied the town with enough energy during peak producing times that the regular generator would become unnecessary, Thompson said.
Marriol said. "When the PRDA (Program Research and Development Announcement) was announced two years ago, they were talking about a plant capable of producing one megaawatt, or 1000 kilowatts."
THAT PLANT WOULD have cost $40 million to construct but then 55 to 60 dishes could have been installed, Marriott said.
With the arrival of the Reagan administration, funds were slashed in all departments, and the very survival of the Department of Energy was in doubt. The project hung in limbo for two years.
Early this year, Congress reinstituted the plan at the urging of Senator Bob Dole and Congressman Bob Whittaker, both of Kansas, who stated that the state would provide information on the use of solar power for small towns across the country.
Marriot said that experimental objectives could still be achieved despite the lack of data.
"We can learn as much with two dishes as with 60. What suffers is the community. They don't get the power-producing plant they had hoped."
HUMMERICHHOUSE SAID that people in town had approached him wondering if the solar project would decrease their electric bills.
Marriot said that the intent of the experiment was not to supply a town
special to the Kansan
"No such luck," he said.
with only solar energy, but to see how that type of energy can be supplemented to the existing energy supply.
The system has three basic parts, said Julius Sheldon, manager of solar and thermal technical information for JPL.
The most conspicuous part is the parabolic dish, which consists of 36 concentrators. Concentrators are mirrors that reflect rays and concentrate them, she said.
"It's like taking a magnifying glass and gathering lots of sun from a lot of area, and concentrating it into a small area," Sheldon said.
THAT SMALL AREA IS the receiver, extended from the center of the dish by a shaft. All of the energy gathered by the area concentrated to this focal point, she said.
This is an artist's rendering of how the solar plant at Osage City will look when it is completed. Each of the parabolic dishes shown will be capable of producing as much as 20 kilowatts of energy.
The field of collectors is run by a third component known as the central system. Essentially, it is a computer housed in a building at the site. As it works in the morning, the computer will turn on the entire system, Marriot said.
Connected to the receiver is the engine generator, or turbine.
The computer monitors energy generated by the sun and tracks the path of the sun. As the sun moves across the sky, the dishes follow it. Marriot said.
Energy is converted to a usable form when it passes from the receiver to the transmitter.
THE TURBINE CONTAINS an organic but carcinogenic substance called toluene that is turned into vapor and travels in the air they pass from the receiver to the turbine.
The steam turns the turbine which generates the current.
Marriot said that researchers chose toluene over water because toluene is more efficient at lower temperatures, thus requiring less energy to convert.
"The inverters are 90 percent efficient," he said. Which is to say that for the inverter that goes into the inverter, 90 percent of it emerges as electricity, he said.
The current that the turbine produces is in direct current form, Marriot said. The energy is collected in this form and transferred to an inverter within the central control building. It is inverted to AC current and the proper voltage.
NOT ALL OF THE components are so effective_however.
The engine that generates the electricity is only 24 percent efficient, Mar-
Overall, the efficiency of the solar generator is 15 percent to 20 percent, he said.
This ratio is still more efficient than photovoltaic conversion, which is about 10 percent. Marriot said.
The difference between the two approaches, he said, is that photovoltaic cells do a direct conversion of sunlight to electricity. The system planned for use in this project is an electrical collects thermal energy and converts it to electricity, he said.
"We expect efficiencies to increase to 30 percent and beyond in future generations." Marriot said.
TO LOOK AT THE DISHES, one would think them especially vulnerable to the elements. That is not the case, Marriot said.
The computer has an automatic safety mechanism that directs the dishes to turn over. When wind speeds exceed 60 km/h, the dish can easily inlyrse the dishes, Marriot said.
Marriot said that one of the reasons for the delay was that there wasn't anybody contracted to do the construction yet.
Construction and installation of the dishes is scheduled for late 1982, said Jerry Braun, director of the solar and thermal power division of the Department of Energy. Initial plant operation is slated for 1984.
"Ford Aerospace and Communications Corporation is a candidate," he said, "because they have been involved in the program for several years."
Jet Proposition Laboratories is responsible for the design, for the dishes, control systems and subsystems, he said.
"But somebody else will do the actual construction at the site."
City leaders hope the project will spur a period of growth for Onsage City.
That would be healthy for the average businessman, and possibly bring in customers.
Hummerkhouse said, "We hope that it will bring in publicity and people to the town that normally wouldn't have come here."
"These possibilities might lead to growth for the city," Thompson said.
Meanwhile, they wait for the day when Osage City has the first municipal solar-powered electric generator in the world.
Museum offers glimpses of frontier past
By NEAL MeCHRISTY Staff Reporter
A tarnished cannon points across the winding Missouri River near the site of a bridge that brought freight to soldiers at Fort Leavenworth.
The bridge, which also was known as the "Whiskey Bridge" because liquor was brought across the state line during Prohibition days, was destroyed in 1964. The fort that the bridge is located back over years of soldiers marching through the grounds, with the museum that has kept those memories alive.
Oregon and Santa Fe trails and to help keep peace with the Indians.
THE MUSEUM AT Fort Leavenworth houses about 60 different wagons, including a sleigh that was used by General George A. Custer, a fire-hose wagon, a carriage that President Lincoln rode in, and wagons that carried settlers across the Oregon and Santa Fe trails.
About 60,000 people visit the museum each year. Tim O'Neill, curator,
The oldest house in Kansas, a 1790-vintage Conestoga wagon, a chapel dedicated in 1878 and other memories of the war, was built about 40 miles per mile of Lawrence.
LINCOLN RODE FROM Elmwood to Leavenworth in Deys, 1859. In a carriage the carriage was displayed in the museum. The carriage was drawn up two horses through bitter winter weather.
garb and a buffalo-horned headdress stands behind a glass in one corner. In the hallway, a mannequin of a blue uniformed cavalry officer with a sword and scabbard is astride a statue of a black horse.
Fort Leavenworth, the oldest fort west of the Missouri River, was established May 8, 1827 by Col. Henry Leavenworth. A group of 188 soldiers were under orders to establish a fort to protect train trains headed west on the
The museum has a bright red and yellow stagecoach called "Heavy Concord," which could carry nine passengers. A plaque reads, "The Iron
A YELLOWED SLEIGH sits in the corner of the vehicle display. The sleigh was used by General Custer while he took the cavalry into the battle with the Seventh Cavalry in 1872.
The Rookery
Special to the Kansas
The mannequin of an American Indian, dressed in a Fringed buckskin
Little Bighorn. Memorials of other officers killed in battle are on the walls near it. stained-glass windows in the chapel.
Horse and automobiles .'ere its
nemesis "
The chapel was built with prison labor and was dedicated in 1878.
Behind the chapel is the Missouri River, and downstream on the river-banks are cannons cast in 1774. It is suspected that the cannons, which were manufactured in Paris, France, were used in the Revolutionary War.
HOWEVER, HOW AND WHY the three cannons came to Leavenworth remains a mystery. The cannons are each about 8 feet long. Two point across the river near the site of the bridge across the Missouri River.
The bridge, built in 1872, was originally used by trains but in 1914 was converted for automobile use, said Ma.J. Greenwood. The Department of Academic Operations
Custer is also remembered in the Memorial Chapel. Near the door are two wooden slabs with the names of Custer's officers killed at the battle of the
In 1933, when alcoholic beverages were banned in Kansas but not in Missouri, the bridge was used to scuttle liquor across to Kansas residences. Since the fort was federal property, liquor was legal at the fort. Reichley said.
Fort Leavenworth has many firsts. One of them is the first house built in Kansas, in 1832. The house is named "The Bankery."
THE NAME SUPPEDDED LYM came from a visiting British officer, Rebleylish
since the house was used by bachelor officers, this officer commented on how the noise reminded him of a name for a nesting place for birds, he said.
The house has kept the name ever since.
Two colonel's families now live in the building that housed Gen. Douglas Mac-Arthur when he was a lieutenant at the fort in the early 1900s.
Across the street from the house, a soldier in a green camouflage uniform paused to light a cigarette as he walked along the sidewalks of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks.
THE LOWER PART of the walls are covered with twisting barbed wire. The structure is still used to house personnel who commit crimes while in the service. Maximum inmate capacity is 1,887
There is also a stone wall across from the statue of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The wall is said to have been constructed by a blockhouse that formerly was there.
To the west of the original fort are tombstones across the hills. Many of the markers in the older sections of the fort were inscribed on stone." The cemetery dates back to 1846.
The statue of Grant is 18 feet tall. It was the largest statue of its type in the United States.
Dave Fratley, museum staff member,
said that busy days on the fort were
frequent.
Tours are self-guided but guided tours can be arranged in advance, Rows 21-31.
"On July 4, it was just a steady stream of people coming through," he
Commissioners oversee county budget,services
The Douglas County Commission may be small, but in 1982 it controlled a budget of nearly $13 million.
The three-member commission is composed of Chairman Beverly Bradley and Commissioners Robert Neis and Walter Cragan.
Commissions receive a $3,933.14 yearly salary and meet three times a week in the county courthouse, Ithc and Massachusetts streets. TheirJuniors are paid a ten percent nine townships, which have a combined population of about 65,000.
THE COMMISSIONERS duties are varied, said Rita Westerhaus, the commissioners' administrative office assistant.
Commissioners are elected to four-year terms. Both Neis and Bradley were elected in November 1974. Pragn's term will end next spring.
He did not seek re-election.
The commission oversees a nursing home, an ambulance service, law enforcement, the county fair, and other activities of the maintenance of Lone Star Lake.
Currently, the commission is hammering out the county's 1983 budget and revenue sharing allocations, Westerhaus said.
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Hillcrest Shopping Center
Malls Shopping Center
nabil's
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Join us for an affordable gourmet meal Sunday is KU Student Night (10% off any meal with KU student ID)
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