Trina Wafle
Ms. Trina Karolchik Wafle serves as WVU National Research Center for Coal and Energy deputy director responsible for broad oversight of the Center?s research, operations, and financial matters with major responsibility for communications. For the last year, she has acted as interim associate director of the NRCCE’s environmental information clearinghouse for small communities. She has also served as assistant director of the DOE EPSCoR program and has been an advisor to the Advanced Power and Electricity Research Center, a university-wide spin-off center of the DOE EPSCoR program. She is program coordinator for the Consortium for Fossil Fuel Science program at WVU and she helped establish the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium. She helped develop National Alternative Fuel Vehicle Day Odyssey, the nation?s largest-ever one-day event dedicated to the promotion of alternative fuel vehicles. As part of the Odyssey team, she won two Gold Awards in 2003 and two Gold Awards in 2005 from the Association for Communication Excellence. She is a 1982 WVU alumna with a B.A. in English, cum laude, and has performed some graduate work in computer science. She is married with three sons and one step-son, and the step-grandmother of one sweet boy with another on the way. In her spare time, she enjoys reading histories, ice skating, and playing golf.
Alter—to change or make different; to adjust for a better fit. My observation of is that the nature of nature is change. Change in nature is evident from conception to decay, in the rise and fall of tides, in the seasons, in particles of light where the very act of our looking causes a change so that we see only shadows of which we are not certain. Is it ok to change nature? The question implies that humans are not of nature. But we are. We alter the world around us whether we mean to or not and in turn we are alteredat least that’s what the fossil record would indicate. The better question may be what is our role in nature? We are endowed with the gifts of thought, mind, and consciousness with which we can contemplate such questions. We are free to do with these gifts whatever we wishignore them, dwell on them, share them, act on them for better or for worse. That?s where wisdom, rooted in love, respect, and humility, becomes important. What is wisdom? That?s THE QUESTION for philosophers, literally lovers of wisdom, everywhere!
I googled “wisdom defined” and got 1,680,000 possible answers!
My own thought is that wisdom is about thinking with both head and heart?discerning what provides the greatest good for the greatest number with the least potential for harm.
Where energy is concerned, it seems that humankind has a love/hate relationship. Our livelihood depends on affordable, available energy. But generally we don?t want the byproducts of energy production.
In her book Coal, A Human History, Barbara Freese describes that in England in the late 1200s, wood was a primary source of energy. But the forests were being denuded. So coal came into use. Until it was outlawed. But the wood shortages continued so that by the middle 1500s the price of wood in London outpaced inflation which hurt the poor more than anyone else. Only the rich could afford wood and that lasted only until about 1610-1620. The increasing use of coal in the city led to increasing respiratory disease and death and stunted the growth of children. As Freese notes, the choice was to die a slow death from coal or a quick death from cold.
The advent of the stove allowed for more efficient heating. It took about one-quarter to one-half as much fuel to provide the same amount of heat from a stove as from an open fireplace. Ironically, whereas most of the world embraced the stove, Londoners were slow to adopt this innovation because of their fondness for open fires and the belief that somehow stoves diminished the air quality of their homes rather than purify it. The point is, humanity?s inventiveness led to improvements in energy use.
That remains true today. In the late 60?s and early 70?s, American society was increasingly concerned about the potential for harm caused by the emission of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from coal-fired power plants. Sulfur dioxide is linked to acid rain. Nitrogen oxides lead to smog.
A presentation by Rita Bajura, former director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory here in Morgantown, demonstrates the benefits of technological advances and the challenges that remain. (See this and other presentations from the West Virginia Energy Roadmap Workshop Series co-hosted by the National Research Center for Coal and Energy at WVU: http://www.wvenergyroadmapworkshops.org/presentations/2004/presentations.cfm)
Electricity production from coal in the U.S. has tripled while emissions of sulfur dioxide are lower by one-half to two-thirds than they were in 1970. Nitrogen oxide emissions are up only slightly. And most can pay their electricity bills.
Society remains concerned about these and other pollutants such as mercury. Mercury from coal-fired power plants in the U.S. represents 48% of all man-made emissions in the U.S. and only 1% of all global mercury emissions. Around the world, volcanoes and forest fires account for 32% of mercury emissions. Another 59% comes from other manmade sources globally.
Does this mean we ignore mercury emissions? Thinking with both head and heart, the answer is no. Getting at the right thing to do is currently being debated. It is not out of the question that technological solutions may be found to address mercury emissions. But many questions? technological, societal, and economic?remain and so provide opportunities for research and human inventiveness.
The same goes for carbon dioxide emissions.
Integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC, may be one piece to the ongoing challenge of reliable, affordable energy and allow the capture of sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, and carbon dioxide. Some of these elements could be used as feedstocks for other products. But what to do with the carbon dioxide is and will remain an active research question for the foreseeable future. It is one that faculty here at WVU are engaged in exploring.
What about renewables such as hydro, wind, solar. Each of those options also has its problems. If you have been following the wind development in West Virginia?s eastern counties, you know that many do not welcome wind generation for a number of reasons. Can answers be found to address the problems? I believe that ultimately they can. That is on reason I enjoy and value my job. I believe that in the long run, supporting and participating in a vibrant research community is one of the wisest things we can do as we think about changing nature and the nature of change.
