MSU students explore alternative energy

By WALT WILLIAMS Chronicle Staff Writer

If Victor Frankenstein owned a push lawn mower, it might have resembled the contraption Brian McCurdy and his two classmates designed - a hodgepodge sporting extra hoses, a car battery and two plastic soda bottles attached to the mower's handlebars.

DEIRDRE EITEL/CHRONICLE Nathan Friesz, right, who worked on the biodiesel generator in the foreground in his transportation technology class, discusses the alternative energy project with Augie Cary Monday afternoon at Montana State University. The new features obviously weren't for looks. They were added so the mower could run partially on hydrogen extracted from water and get better fuel efficiency.

“Basically the initial ingredient is rainwater,” said McCurdy, a Montana State University junior. “We can use lime juice, we can use a thousand other electrolytes. Urine is actually one that can do it.”

The hydrogen-powered mower was one of several projects MSU students displayed Monday outside Cheever Hall to showcase the possibilities of alternative energy in everyday life. Completed for an undergraduate-level class, the projects covered the entire spectrum of alternate energy, from wind to solar power to geothermal energy.

The projects were completed for a class that originally focused on transportation technology. But instructor Lidia Runkel, an adjunct professor in technology education, decided instead to focus on alternative energy, a topic of growing public interest. She pointed to the recent state Legislature, which considered numerous bills to encourage the development of alternative energy sources.

The students found that even alternative energy comes with tradeoffs, Runkel said. For example, wind power might be clean, but some people have opposed the development of new wind farms because they don't want to see huge windmills marring the landscape.

“What they've learned more than anything is there is no simple answer,” she said.

McCurdy's lawn mower still ran on gasoline, but attached to it was a fuel cell that separated the hydrogen atoms from the water and then pumped the gas into the engine through a tube.

Hydrogen is flammable, which McCurdy demonstrated by placing the tube in a glass of water and then igniting the surfacing bubbles with a cigarette lighter.

The result of pumping hydrogen into the lawn mower engine is that it gets better mileage, increasing fuel efficiency by about 30 percent, according to the students' experiments.

“This is with absolutely no modifications to the engine,” McCurdy said. “All we had to do is plug in one valve here.”

Other students built a miniature power-generating windmill. Another crafted a miniature water wheel that generated electricity.

Junior Kelly Carlson and his three classmates converted an engine from a pressure washer to run on biodiesel derived from vegetable oil. The resulting machine could generate 5,000 watts of electricity, he said.

Students had to come up with the designs on their own, turning to whatever sources they could find for inspiration. The Internet was a starting point, with some relying on Google or even YouTube.

“I had written some research papers on (biodiesel) in the past but really didn't have any practical experience with it," Carlson said. "It turned out great, I would really like to pursue it in the future.”

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