Environmental Awareness

At Wolf Run we are continually working to be as environmentally friendly as we can and through our Environmental Awareness Program we hope to pass what we learn on to others. From learning more about concepts as simple as recycling and planting trees, to how each of us can lesson our carbon footprint and become less dependent on fossil fuels, we are working on making a positive impact not only for our generation but generations to come.

Environmental Awareness Road CleanupEnvironmental Awareness Tree Planting

As an example, each year grade school, high school and college students come help with our
Earth Day clean up and tree planting day. During the day we clean up a section of road, plant
trees and discuss environmental issues.


Below are a couple examples of how we are learning about and using Alternative Energy Systems.

 


Here is the Solar System we started to use durring our 2009 Harvest Festival to help light up portions of the property.


Environmental Awareness Solar

A little about the tech behind how it all works. The solar panel is a 22 Watt Utility Power Module from Unisolar (UPM880) and runs through a small charge controller to a deep cycle marine battery. From there we attached a 400 Watt inverter that converts the 12VDC (the same voltage you find in most cars) to 110VAC (household current). Lastly we had several long cords running out to the 4 light poles each with a 16Watt CFL (Compact Flourescent) floodlight, about 64Watts total.

 

Our Solar System is a little rough, but it is a work in progress.

This year it did pretty well but did have some problems. It was able to run most of the first night but did not work as well the second.

We think the battery age may be a factor along with the inverter being pretty old also. Next year we are thinking of trying it with two newer batteries and possibly a new inverter. We are also hoping to replace the long extension cords with a more permeant solution while also expanding it to a total of 7 or 8 light post.

solarsolar



Our setup for our Solar Powered Laptop is similar to the above system, only much smaller so it can be portable and used for demonstrations at various events.

Solar Powered LaptopA 1.5 watt solar panel to *helps to charge a small 5AH 12V battery that powers the small 100 watt Black & Decker inverter. The inverter in turn runs an old IBM Thinkpad (that happens to have a dead battery in it). Even though the battery pack had a small inverter in it, the Black & Decker inverter was used because just prior to an event the small inverter stopped working. It was later found to have a faulty power switch.

 

*While the small 1.5 watt panel could over time charge the battery pack, when we return to the sanctuary we plug it into the larger solar system to top off the battery.



Our Solar Laptop was made possible with help from our friends at Batteryspec.com .

Battery Spec