Children hear a green message
Originally published 01:51 p.m., April 29, 2008
Updated 01:51 p.m., April 29, 2008
Photo by Adam Vogler
Bill Hanlon talks to fourth-graders at Village Elementary School about building environmentally friendly housing.
Bill Hanlon may be the Jules Verne of Emporia energy.
Hanlon, a building trades instructor at the Flint Hills Technical College, on Monday presented a program about energy and the “green initiative” to approximately 70 fourth-grade students at Village School. He was brought in to speak by Jane McCoy, one of the fourth-grade teachers.
In addition to a long career in construction and being conservation-conscious, Hanlon is a consultant on rebuilding Greensburg as a green community.
But Hanlon is interested not only in green communities; he is deeply involved in conserving energy in every arena and has learned about an assortment of changes that are going on in the United States and around the world.
During the talk on Monday, he told the children about Japanese and European trains that use the repelling phenomenon of magnets — magnetic levitation — to “fly” just above the rails at speeds from 180 to 220 miles per hour.
Traditional trains contend with the natural drag of the rail’s friction; the magnetic-using trains have eliminated that.
“This sounds like science fiction, but we’re using them,” Hanlon said. “(The magnets) push the cars on down the tracks. They’re extremely efficient and they’re extremely fast.”
Other countries are ahead of the United States in clean, alternative technologies, and already are using them.
“Iceland’s running all hydrogen buses,” Hanlon said. “The only thing hydrogen gives off is water.”
In Cottonwood Falls, he said, a man has made his own hydrogen engine that runs his mower. In Great Bend, another man has fashioned an engine that produces power through a reaction caused by water on metal.
“We have people out there right now who are driving cars that run on water, and they give off water,” Hanlon said.
Solar energy continues to be an energy source that long has been overlooked. The photovoltaic cells contain quartz molecules that are lined up so that when sun hits them, the electrons move and create energy.
“They’re using them everywhere in the world more than we are here,” he said.
A recently discovered way of storing wind energy should make it considerably more efficient, as well as more attractive as a major source of power.
“So we will be able to actually harvest and store this wind energy,” he said.
All of those new energy sources and conservation measures dovetail nicely with the green initiative.
“Green” is a shift in the way human beings treat the world, taking actions to conserve and clean up what exists and to make the least impact possible on the environment. “The ‘green initiative’ will just be ‘thinking green.’ What is green?” Hanlon asked the students.
As they called out their ideas about ways to avoid polluting the planet and how to remedy inefficiencies that waste not just energy but a variety of tangibles like food, recyclable materials and other items, Hanlon jotted their suggestions on a whiteboard:
• Cleaning up the land — litter, pollutants
• Energy efficiency — houses, schools, all buildings
• Earth-friendly products
• Fewer pollutants
• Not wasting — recycling
• Better transportation
• Food
“You can start looking at how you can save,” he said. “... You guys have an opportunity to actually do something in what we’re trying to do in this green initiative.”
Other suggestions were offered:
• Walk or ride a bicycle to a friend’s house instead of being driven there by Mom
• Open windows instead of using the air conditioner, when possible
• Save natural gas by keeping the house cooler in winter and wear a sweatshirt to stay warmer
Recycling is and will continue to be an important part of the green initiative.
Hanlon said that his students insulate houses with recycled newspaper, which is called cellulose insulation.
“It doesn’t take near so much energy to make as it does Fiberglas,” he said, explaining that it takes 12,000 BTUs to make Fiberglas, while it takes only 850 BTUS to make the same amount of cellulose insulation.
“What can you do that’s a green initiative when you leave your bedroom?” Hanlon asked the children.
“Turn off the light,” the children responded.
“You turn it off and you save 50 cents a month by doing that,” he said. “That doesn’t sound like much.”
But Hanlon extrapolated the small amount saved by 3,000 households in Emporia; Topeka is 10 times as big as Emporia; Wichita is three times as large as Topeka, and Kansas City is three times larger than Wichita.
As the numbers and savings pyramided geometrically, the children began to see what he meant. If millions of households around the world each turned off a light when they left the room, the savings would be monumental.
“If everybody does it, then all of a sudden you’ve made an impact on this green initiative,” he said. “... (W)hen you do that, that’s less pollution just by turning the lights off in your house.”
And turning off lights has an extra benefit, Hanlon told them.
“We’ve not only done something that’s good for the environment, we’ve done something that’s good for your Christmas presents, ‘cause your parents will have more money to spend.”
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