Brewer students find ways to conserve energy resources

BREWER – Students in Darrell King’s Advanced Placement environmental science class at Brewer High School have done the math on global energy – and the figures hit close to home.

About three-fourths of the seniors at the 919-student school have access to a school bus, yet each morning seniors burn a combined 30 gallons of gasoline driving their own vehicles.

That’s 580 pounds of carbon dioxide released into the air each morning, said senior Brad Libby during a midterm exam Wednesday that was presented as the first Brewer Renewable Energy Conference.

“This may not seem like that much,” Libby said. “But that’s 102,000 pounds of carbon dioxide [in one school year] that is released into the atmosphere by one high school.”

And gasoline is just one example, senior Heather Beyenburg said after Wednesday’s presentation.

“I never realized how much energy we use,” she said. “My family, for example, are using one of those top-loading washing machines. We use more water doing laundry than taking showers.

The students concluded that U.S. residents waste energy and rely way too much on foreign oil.

In their presentation, the students offered information on how to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of alternative energy resources.

“We believe the U.S. is capable of reducing its dependency on nonrenewable resources,” junior Kasey Linglay said to kick off the presentation.

The 11 students in the class, a mix of juniors and seniors, first explained the history behind energy use in the U.S., going back to when coal was discovered and mined, and then discussed options that would decrease the country’s addiction to oil.

The various renewable energies, including solar, nuclear, tidal, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power, are more efficient, depending on the region of the country where they are applied, the students explained.

All can be applied in Maine except for geothermal power, which is limited to the western United States.

None of the renewable energy sources is new, and the students say it is people who are blocking the advancement of those energy possibilities.

Senior Ana Bean said wind power is one resource that is greatly underused.

“It’s a theory that if wind power were developed in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, there would be enough wind to provide power for the whole U.S.,” she said.

In Maine, wind turbines have been installed in Mars Hills, and other projects are being considered, Bean pointed out.

“I think this would greatly benefit the United States and would be well worth the money spent on it,” she said. “It’s virtually free energy when you get them built.”

For people to change, it requires a financial, moral, personal or social reason, and the students don’t expect things to change overnight.

“It probably won’t be in your lifetime or mine,” Beyenburg said. “It will take a lot of time because people aren’t willing to change.”