Summer 1996 Renewable Energy Workshop For Tribal College Instructors

"Wow! That really blows me away!" Corky Clairmont said with a wry grin as he surveyed a landscape covered with hundreds of giant windmills, spinning in the breeze at California’s windy Altamont Pass. Clairmont, an assistant vice-president at Salish-Kootenai College, and 21 other instructors from 13 tribal colleges were on a visit to one of the world’s largest wind energy facilities, which generates enough electricity to power the city of San Francisco. "I've never seen anything like this before," said Clairmont. "It’s frightening, in a way." Some of Clairmont’s colleagues saw it differently. "Our reservation has a lot of wind," said Kerry Hartman of Ft. Berthold Community College, "and the tribe is interested in getting away from the power companies and using its own resources. This inspires me to go home and start a wind study as a first step toward building a bunch of these wind turbines ourselves."

Clairmont, Hartman and the other instructors were visiting the wind farm as part of a week-long workshop on renewable energy held last summer at the University of California at Berkeley. The workshop was organized by NAREEP as the culmination of a year-long collaboration with tribal colleges to develop an energy curriculum specifically geared toward tribal college students. The workshop allowed instructors to become familiar with the curriculum, learn from leaders in the renewable energy field, and get their hands dirty playing with the latest off-the-grid technologies, many of which incorporate techniques practiced by Native Americans for generations.

One day, the instructors took a harrowing bus ride on a twisty dirt road in the Santa Cruz mountains to see the low-tech side of the renewable energy revolution. There at a remote homestead in the redwoods, microhydro guru Don Harris demonstrated how he manufactures tiny but highly effective hydroelectric turbines out of metal salad bowls and old car alternators. The instructors traipsed up Harris’ creek with yardsticks and buckets, learning to measure stream flow and pressure head. "This is great," said Mike Smith of Sitting Bull College, "I’m going to teach this when I get back." Then he laughed. "Where I come from, they'd say that Don Harris is a real ‘Rez Man’."

The potential value of energy conservation and renewable energy to reservation communities was described by physicist Don Aitken of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has worked on tribal projects in the past for the Council of Energy Resource Tribes. "The renewable resources on reservations are immense. Yet Indian people often pay a huge price for heat and electricity," Dr. Aitken said. "Energy efficiency and renewable energy can help keep money on the reservation, and promote job growth in a way that’s compatible with your values. With renewables, your money goes to people instead of buying fuel."

Owen Seumptewa, Debbie Tewa, and Kevin Begay of the nationally-acclaimed Hopi Solar Electric Enterprise gave a short course in solar electricity, demonstrating how to use photovoltaics, or solar panels, to make electricity from the sun. Under Hopi Solar tutelage, the participants constructed photovoltaic systems and used them to operate power tools, lights, and kitchen appliances. Later, Seumptewa spoke of the rewards and challenges of providing solar electricity to homes on the Navajo and Hopi reservations where utility power is not available. "You see people taking a bit more control over their life, having a bit more safety in their homes, there’s a little more education going on, and just a general better quality of life..."

An educator himself, Seumptewa also expressed concerns over the cultural impacts of higher education, knowing that many educated tribal members leave the reservation to find well-paying jobs. To the extent that renewable energy offers on-reservation employment opportunities for tribal members with technical training it can help to relieve this contradiction.

The social dimensions of renewable energy were echoed by Emily Schwalen of D-Q University, who is also a doctoral student in ecology at U.C. Davis. Schwalen’s presentation described the links between education, indigenous knowledge, and technology choices. As a Cherokee, scientist, and educator, Schwalen said, "I want to empower Indian people to bring their own cultures, their own sciences, and their own technologies to the development of new energy technologies that are ecologically sound."

The final day of the workshop brought discussion of ways in which instructors could apply the renewable energy curriculum to their classrooms and communities Terry Tatsey, who supported the wind energy project now operating on the Blackfeet Reservation, said "This was an eye opener. I teach an introductory natural resources class that talks about energy, but I never really had what the whole concept of energy is about before. I now understand why I went to the tribal council to argue for the wind turbine project – I knew it was a good thing, but now I see why it’s a good thing. I want to go back to Blackfeet Community College and help get an intro course started in renewable energy."

Others voiced similar sentiments, and since the workshop, many have followed up. Drew Johnson, Val Barber, and Steve Kozak of Lac Courte Oreilles Community College are offering a course in renewable energy and energy conservation this spring. Jim Dudek of Oglala Lakota College has outlined a two-year degree program in Natural Resources with an option in Native American Renewable Energy and is working to get it funded and approved. Jack Davey of Sinte Gleska University has put a portable solar energy demonstration kit together, and helped to set up a photovoltaic system for a school that was recently built using straw bale construction. Elaine Fleming and Greg Chester of Leech Lake Community College made renewable energy demonstrations part of this year’s Leech Lake Harvest Festival. Ray Griego and Steve Chischilly at Crownpoint Institute of Technology have plans to use solar or wind power to pump water at a local ranch that will be used by the college to teach animal husbandry and animal science.

At the conclusion of the workshop, many instructors expressed a desire for future opportunities to receive training and share teaching experiences and tips with the other instructors. NAREEP is organizing a follow-up workshop for summer 1997.