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Skidaway Institute Scores Hat Trick for Giving |
| 5/27/2008 1:03:00 PM Savannah Daily News. |
(SAVANNAH, GA) For the third year in a row, the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography has been awarded the Governor's Cup for its participation in the 2007-2008 State Charitable Contributions Campaign. The Governor's Cup award is given to five state agencies, colleges/universities or community service boards each year.
Governor's Cup awards are based on a performance formula, which calculates the highest contribution per employee adjusted for each organization's average salary. Skidaway Institute of Oceanography's employees contributed more than any organization in the entire state with employees numbering 1-100.
The Charitable Campaign is part of the State Charitable Contributions Program, authorized by the 1982 Georgia General Assembly to provide state employees a convenient way to make financial contributions to charity. Statewide, employees selected from more than 1,200 local charitable organizations to contribute by payroll deductions or one-time lump-sum payments.
Prior to 2006, Skidaway Institute employees won the Governor's Cup for five consecutive years, from 1997 to 2001, and were runners-up from 2002 to 2005. |
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Algae could be key to new energy source
by James Sanders
Director, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
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#08-008
May 19, 2008
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Biofuel from algae has re-emerged in the news as a promising alternative to traditional sources of energy. Many experts believe that algae will eventually surpass all other biofuel feedstocks as the cheapest and most environmentally-friendly way to produce liquid fuel.
Corn is currently the only commercially-viable source of ethanol fuel production, but it is an environmentally-taxing process. Growing demand for corn due to the expansion of ethanol has increased concerns that environmentally sensitive lands will return to production. These lands have the potential for environmental damage if they are farmed. In addition, the use of corn for ethanol greatly reduces its availability for food products, thus generating higher food prices for consumers.
There are other, more environmentally-friendly ways of producing ethanol. Much of the ethanol industry is focused on the potential of converting cellulose to ethanol. This includes materials such as corn stalks, wheat straw, grasses, trees, etc. Cellulose ethanol production would allow farmers to harvest perennials appropriate for their area, rather than forcing corn onto lands that are not well-suited to support it. The energy bill signed into law last year requires that 44 percent of ethanol be derived from cellulose by 2022. Production of cellulose ethanol, however, is still at an experimental stage and faces a number of challenges. Ultimately, however, if researchers can streamline the process, then ethanol could be made from a variety of plant materials.
The notion of using vegetable oil for fuel has been around as long as the diesel engine. The main source of food oil based biodiesel is the soybean, but unless soybean oil prices decline dramatically, biodiesel cannot be produced in large quantities at a cost that is competitive with petroleum diesel.
Algae, on the other hand, can be used to produce biodiesel fuel and has a potential energy yield many times higher than that of soybeans. An average acre of algae grown today for pharmaceutical industries can produce 5,000 gallons of biodiesel each year. Algae need only sunlight, water, nutrients, and carbon dioxide to grow, have extremely fast growth rates, and some types of algae comprise 50 percent oil. It should not come as a surprise, then, that algae is being viewed by some as an attractive alternative to vegetable crops for energy production.
In fact, this knowledge is nothing new. The US Department of Energy began investigating algae in the 1970s. The Aquatic Species Program, as it was called, grew algae in open pond test sites in Hawaii, California and New Mexico. Although the project achieved maximum yields of more than one hundred times that of oil palm (oil palm is among the most efficient of conventional crops) the program was abandoned in 1996 because the low cost of crude oil made it difficult for alternative fuels to compete and because of inadequate knowledge of the biology involved in alternative fuel production.
As oil and food prices recently began to increase, small algal fuel producers have arisen. Nevertheless, algae still has not been proved as an economic proposition. The challenge is coming up with economical systems.
The algae-to-biofuels community is mainly focused today on super strains cultivated in bioreactors (vessels in which biochemical processes are carried out). Using this technology, commercially-viable production of biofuels is still years away. This may be true when it comes to the use of bioreactors, but some experts claim that open-pond systems are commercially viable now and that these systems may be the only hope for keeping capital costs low enough for algae-to-biofuel technology to be commercially viable in the future.
An economic environment that can support low production costs, research expertise in marine algae, and in the conversion to a useful energy product, may all be key to the development of a commercially-viable algae-to-energy enterprise which would give us an abundance of local low-cost fuel.
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WJCL 22 / ABC and WTGS / FOX28, The Coastal Source
Created 2008-05-19 |
The Georgia Supreme Court is now deciding whether a law protecting marshland applies to dry land. The decision could impose tougher standards on construction near marshes along the Georgia coast. The dispute is between environmentalists and the developer of a subdivision slated to go up near the Florida border. A local geologist is serving on a committee that's looking into the effects. Dr. Clark Alexander said, "Its a law that basically regulates what can and can't be done in the Coastal marshlands of Georgia. There's a committee that decides on projects that are proposed that impact the marsh such as marinas, community docks and things like that." This is the first time the court has considered whether development on land is covered by the Coastal Marshlands Protection Act. |
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Study documents dock damage to marsh |
By Mary Landers
Created 2008-05-11 23:30
Published on SavannahNow.com |
So much dead marsh grass accumulated in front of Betsy Cain and David Kaminsky's Wilmington Island property last year they organized teams of "wrack wranglers" to wade in the water and push it out with the tide.
They blamed the buildup, which smothered portions of the marsh, on their neighbor's newly built 980-foot-long dock.
A new study gives credence to that conclusion.
Clark Alexander, a professor of oceanography at Skidaway Institute, used aerial photographs to compare wrack buildup on the east side of Skidaway Island, where no docks are allowed, with the east side of nearby and similarly oriented Wilmington Island, where 101 docks jut out into the marsh.
Comparable amounts of wrack built up along both islands, but the pattern in which it accumulated differed.
On Skidaway Island, wrack hugged the shoreline. On Wilmington Island, the dead marsh grass piled up behind docks in lower-lying areas farther from the shore.
The findings didn't surprise Alexander.
"Everyone knew that, but there was no data to show it," he said. "This proves docks do influence the distribution of wrack."
The impact of all that wrack where it doesn't naturally accumulate is an issue for further study, but Alexander suspects the docks' influence is detrimental.
"Shoreline areas are more ecologically adapted to being smothered," Alexander said. "That low marsh is not as resilient to that sort of smothering and shading."
Cain said she's seen the effect already, including failed mussel beds and a dead zone where a gigantic raft of wrack smothered the marsh grass.
"The low marsh is dramatically affected," she said. "We're photographing creek beds as they slough and collapse. There's nothing to hold it."
Alexander's study did not address the question of dock length specifically, but that has a clear effect, too, he said.
"The longer docks are, the more likely they are to trap wrack," he said. "It's an obvious conclusion."
Older docks damaging
It's not only functioning docks that had a detrimental effect on the marsh. Derelict docks did, too, and that observation led to the report's only recommendation.
Alexander, who served for eight years on the state's Coastal Marshlands Protection Committee - the entity that issues permits for community and commercial docks and marinas - suggests the state make sure anyone requesting a permit for a new dock remove old pilings first. On Wilmington, Alexander counted 18 derelict docks in addition to the 101 functioning ones.
"These old structures are not serving any purpose, they're just having a detrimental effect by creating big mats that shade, smother, compress and perhaps denude the productive salt marsh," he said. "Really they should be taken out because they are of no benefit to anyone."
Alexander completed his study with a $7,500 grant from the Coastal Zone Management Program, administered through the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
The DNR's Brad Gane, assistant director for ecological services, said Friday that he has not yet reviewed the report.
He agreed there are derelict docks in the marsh, but the department's policy is already in line with Alexander's recommendation.
"If someone's asking for a new dock, and they have an existing one, it comes out," he said. "No question about it."
Alexander's current study is a snapshot of wrack accumulation.
He'd like next to document a whole season of marsh wrack production, buildup and removal to see how docks affect the process, but he doesn't yet have funding to do so.
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Skidaway Institute scientists help develop Ossabaw Island as a living laboratory |
#08-005
February 20, 2008 |
The dream to turn Ossabaw Island into a living laboratory accessible to anyone with a computer is a step closer to reality. Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and the Ossabaw Island Foundation have received $200,000 in grants from the Georgia Power Corporation and the Georgia Research Alliance to build a network of sensors on the remote coastal Georgia barrier island. The goal is to allow educators, students and scientists to study the island and monitor changes in the environment from off-island locations.
"Based on a number of workshops with state scientists and other stakeholders, we initiated the idea to establish an observing system on the island so people could have access to the island, not just by going over by boat, but also remotely through sensors and computer technology," said Herb Windom, a Skidaway Institute scientist and one of the originators of the plan. |
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Other partners in the project include the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which manages theisland; the Ossabaw Island Foundation, which is responsible for developing educational and cultural programs; and the Alliance for Coastal Technology (ACT), a consortium of research laboratories, including Skidway Institute, whose goal is to promote the development of remote sensor technology.
Ossabaw is an undeveloped barrier island several miles south of Savannah. In 1978, the West family who owned the island sold it to the state of Georgia with the understanding it would never be developed, and would be used for education and research. It was established as Georgia's first heritage trust. |
Through grants from Georgia Power, the Ossabaw Foundation has installed a power grid and a broadband wireless communication system essential for operating a sensor network. ACT established monitoring wells on the island to monitor ground water, and last August, also with aid from Georgia Power, a weather station was set up. Real-time weather conditions from this system can be monitored on-line at www.georgiaweather.net.
The next phase will include three sensor systems to monitor water quality -- on the coast, in a creek and in a pond. Additional sensors will also be deployed in wells to monitor the groundwater levels, temperature and salinity. Within the next year, more and different sensors will be added to the network, including video cameras on the beach and at other locations on the island.
"Ossabaw is one of the very few islands protected from development due to its status as a heritage trust," said Windom. "So here is a place for people to look at a barrier island and see how it responds to a variety of things, like seasonal changes in climate, storm events, droughts or global climate change."
Windom envisions educators, students and researchers continuing to visit the island as they do now. "You can bring in an education group and they can study the island as it is," he said. "Then they can follow it when they return to their classroom."
According to Paul Pressly, director of the Ossabaw Island Foundation's education programs, the goal of the project is two-fold. "We want the information coming from the sensors, video cameras and other monitors to go into every classroom in the state of Georgia," he said. "Secondly, we want researchers to be able to place sensors that serve their research purposes on the island, whether monitoring water quality, tarpon activity in the creeks or other forms of animal life. Through our network of sensors and cameras, we have the opportunity of redefining how coastal ecology is taught in this state." |
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Armstrong Atlantic State University professor Ashraf Saad has already begun such a program. With a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Saad has developed OssaBest, a project to increase the preparation and participation of students entering information technology careers. OssaBest will prepare 90 teachers and 120 students from the Savannah-Chatham County School System over the course of the three-year project. Participants will learn how to use advanced information technologies for the exploration of Ossabaw Island, being able to observe natural phenomena via real-time transmission of video and data from the sensor network.
"When the National Science Foundation, Georgia Power and the Georgia Research Alliance made grants this fall to create an observatory on Ossabaw Island, we knew we had crossed a magical threshold," said Pressly. "We now have the resources to put together a path-breaking program for research and education that respects the island's undisturbed nature."
The barrier island observatory will be called the Georgia Power Observatory, in recognition of Georgia Power's long-standing support for projects on the island.
Posted: 2008/02/25 12:03:50 |
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SkIO breaks ground on new laboratory building |
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State Senator Eric Johnson joined officials from the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography to break ground on the institute's new laboratory building on Thursday.
The Marine and Coastal Science Research and Instructional Center (MCSRIC) will contain 11,000 square-feet of research laboratories, space for visiting scientists and instructional space for marine science students from throughout the University System of Georgia. The MCSRIC has been designed to be environmentally friendly and is expect to be certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.
The MSRIC will allow Skidaway Institute to expand its research in several areas, including the development of new technologies associated with ocean observation systems; discovering the diversity of species and their interactions in the marine environment: and the assessment of factors affecting the environmental health and integrity of Georgia's coastal zone.
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 During the 2006 legislative session the Georgia General Assembly approved a $5 million appropriation for the construction of a new laboratory and instructional building. Governor Sonny Perdue signed the budget package that included the appropriation.
The architects for the MCSRIC are Lord, Aeck & Sargent, Inc.. The construction manager is Choate Construction. Engineering work will be done by Hussey, Gay, Bell & DeYoung International Inc. and Nottingham, Brook & Pennington, Inc.
The building is expected to be completed in the spring of 2009. |
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