E NERGY, CONTINUED FROM 6
Mountain Discovery Charter School nestled into
e Great Smoky Mountains in Bryson City, N
We Take Education Outdoors!
MDCS students get to:
• Experience the curriculum in a wilderness setting. For instance, students travel back in time via our experiential Hazel Creek local history trip. • Learn appropriate outdoor and self-care skills • Improve the strength of their classroom team. • Have a sense of accomplishment that simply cannot be obtained in a classroom setting.
We provide students with a stair-stepped series of outdoor experiences beginning with a fourth grade overnight campout at Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest and culminating with a five day, four night eighth grade canoeing, backpacking and local history expedition to Hazel Creek in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
TACKLING EFFICIENCY
NOW ENROLLING K-8 FOR 2022-2023 www.mountaindiscovery.org • 828-488-1222
Get to know N.C. electricity statistics by resource type, as shown in the N.C. Clean Energy Plan.
and Great Smoky Mountains rests one of the best golf courses in North Carolina
INITIATION FEE
SPECIALS
1819 Country Club Drive, Maggie Valley
M AG G I EVA LLEY C LU B . CO M
Join today for access to our beautiful amenities.
Smoky Mountain News
Since the 2002 passage of North Carolina’s Clean Smokestacks Act, the state has been on an upward trajectory toward cleaner air and cleaner energy — a trajectory accelerated by a bipartisan bill enacted in October 2021 that commits the state to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 (see Energy Legislation, page 7). In 2005, coal supplied about half of North Carolina’s power — now Duke is targeting it to provide less than 5% of total generation by 2030 and 0% by 2035, Norton said. According to the North Carolina Clean Energy Plan, monthly nationwide electric generation from renewable sources exceeded coal-fired generation for the first time in April 2019, with renewables supplying 23% of the total that month compared to coal’s 20%. Today, most new generating capacity is renewable-driven. Every energy source has an impact, and every generation technique comes with constraints. But the situation is not static, morphing each day as attitudes shift, laws change and inventors work to overcome today’s constraints. “We’re in this movement, building the bridge to the future we envision,” said Ruark, “and we’re still in that bridge, and we still haven’t come to the other side.”
Maggie. Between the Blue Ridge
May 4-10, 2022
Unlike North Carolinians of 100 years ago, today’s residents don’t rely solely on power produced in their own backyard. Duke Energy operates a massive grid that its customers can draw on collectively, and Duke’s grid is tied into those of other power companies so that, should its capacity come up short for some reason, it could buy electricity from another company to prevent customers from sitting in the dark. Duke customers in North Carolina rely on an energy supply composed of about 50% nuclear, 25% natural gas, 16% coal, 6% solar and 3% hydro. But for Western North Carolina specifically, there’s an upper limit to how much power the region could generate for itself through favored renewables like solar. Ruark estimates that if every building in the region with quality sun exposure installed rooftop solar panels, the region would still be able to meet only about one-fifth of its total energy demand. “People get really excited about renewable energy,” said Lauren Bishop, chief sustainability officer at Western Carolina University. “It’s cool. The technology is cool. But they tend to forget about energy efficiency.” According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2020, 20% of carbon dioxide emissions came from residential buildings — less than the 36% that came from transportation or 29% that came from industry, but still significant. “When someone comes to me and asks me, ‘Hey, I want to put solar panels on my house. How do I go about doing that?’ I always tell them that the first thing you need to do is get an energy audit and make sure your house is as energy efficient as possible,” Bishop said. Not only will a more efficient house cost its owner less in monthly utility bills, but it will also more accurately signal to the utility provider how much power the community
Carolina
news
Energy storage is also a challenge when it comes to solar. Peak solar production occurs during the afternoon of a sunny summer day, and that doesn’t coincide with peak energy demand, requiring a method of storing energy until customers need it. The lithium battery is the most common method of solar energy storage, but it has its own issues. The batteries have a limited lifespan, are challenging to recycle and require mining of rare earth metals to construct. In its forthcoming energy plan, Duke will outline a plan to use its dam at Bad Creek in South Carolina as a de facto battery to expand solar utilities, Norton said. “When you have that excess solar power or we have excess nuclear power, we use it to pump the water in Bad Creek uphill,” he said. “When the power is needed, it flows through turbines downhill, generating electricity.” The dam can currently store up to 1,400 megawatts, and an ongoing feasibility study is evaluating a plan to expand that capacity by adding a second powerhouse. “We’re going to grow solar significantly, and it will start storing more of that surplus energy,” Norton said.
needs — important information when that company is making decisions about how much energy it must produce to meet customer demand. In Bishop’s view, energy conservation is the “the best bang for your buck” when it comes to supporting the clean energy transition. Efficiency upgrades are especially important in the mountain region, which is rife with old, inefficient houses, Ruark said. “Taking the existing housing stock that’s old, and retrofitting the home with energy efficiency, you actually get a lot more savings than you do if you’re trying to retrofit a newer home, because the older home was so much more inefficient,” he said.
Contact Caitlin Bledsoe at 828-926-4831 for information.
golf | fish | hike | raft | dine | play | stay 9
