As someone who has loved skiing for over 40 years.... and who is involved in solar & wind energy industry... would I be totally crazy to dream of setting up an eco-friendly ski resort ?
Two approaches come to mind - help an existing resort clean up it's act (over 90% of the energy we generate is wasted) .... or try and find a soon to be developed region / area that has similar goals and help them reduce energy / pollution / emissions.
Does anyone have any constructive ideas / contacts ?
Thanks !
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Areches Beaufort prides itself that all their energy is hydro and they lay on busses from Albertville for the price of a dayaccred lift pass. They dispersed their eco credentials widely and cant be the only ones. I thing France has some kind of accreditation system for ski resorts as they do for marinas, looking at a wide range of indicators.
Talking of energy, my power is flickering on and off.....
The huge investment in hydro infrastructure is evident throughout this area, with miles of tunnels through the mountains bringing water to the power stations. And solar roof panels don't seem practical in the snow!
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I suppose the first question is ..... What is eco-unfriendly about a ski resort?
1. High usage of electricity to run the lifts
2. Encouraging people to live and work in colder places that need more heating.
3. Fairly destructive measures to create pistes
4. Electricity to power snow cannons
5. Thousands of people travelling hundreds of miles to the ski resort.
I imagine the only ones you can really tackle effectively are #'s 1 and 4. As for how you might generate the power in a more eco-friendly way (ignoring the fact that France produces most of their power from nuclear which IMO is pretty eco-friendly) then the obvious sources are solar, wind and hydro. Most hydro has been done if it makes sense. Wind turbines on mountain tops? Pig ugly and probably not practical or efficient. Solar? Again, I struggle to imagine how this would work. Pig ugly, covered in snow and often shaded by the mountains. So, I think power generation options are pretty limited.
Is there a market? Not sure. TBH I don't think many holiday makers give a monkey's about how eco-friendly a resort is. I can't see you being able to charge a premium for it. It would make a nice little strap-line on the marketing blurb, but not much more than that.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
pam w wrote:
Talking of energy, my power is flickering on and off.....
probably the drain from the local ski resort syphoning off your power.
There is the Green Snowflake award in France (supported by Chamonix etc.) and the Ski Area Scorecard in the US (Park City etc.).
The global ski industry is already well saturated, mature, peaked, oversupplied, undersnowed (needs dirty snowguns to survive) and overpriced, so any new project will need to be outstanding to thrive.
Chances of success for a hyper-green ski resort are tiny (but not impossible).
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
pam w wrote:
And solar roof panels don't seem practical in the snow!
Actually there does seem to be some solar coming into the mix. I was in Zell am See last year and the new glocknerbahn chairlift has PV panels on the side of the stations. They are mounted near vertically, which i guess overcomes the snow accumulation problem
http://www.skiresort.info/typo3temp/pics/d5da14ffe7.jpg
How significant the contibution of the solar is to the energy the lift uses I don't know...
After all it is free
After all it is free
The majority of the environmental impact of a skier's holiday is the journey between home and resort. So although you could make the resort eco-friendly, it doesn't help the big picture that much unless you also sort out the travel part.
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Thanks for your replies everyone.... some good info there.
I am a huge advocate of energy efficiency.... in most places we waste over 90% of the energy we generate as a society.... and so rather than just deal with the source of generation, it's vital to plug the huge wastage gaps.
For example - they have been building chalets in Norway & Sweden for over 20 odd-years which with an outside temp of -10 C don't need any heating. All of these are triple (if not quadruple) glazed.... super-insulated.... etc etc etc.
And yes, ski resorts with good train links have potential for less travel emmissions.
With regard to the generation side - if we managed to stop some of the crazy wastage, we already have a reasonable renewables supply in some countries (Germany for example). Working on both ends of the equation makes the target much much easier (i.e. if we stopped wasting that 90% of the energy we generate - then we already produce enough from renewable sources to be almost 100% renewables).
And yes, I've seen some quite large solar pv arrays in a few ski resorts (on the mountain sometimes for remote refuges etc) - they work very well. The cold temperature helps keep the efficiency high and the snow increases the amount of light they get.... and yes, steeply tilted panels will shed their snow very quickly if it collects at all.
Areches Beaufort prides itself that all their energy is hydro and they lay on busses from Albertville for the price of a dayaccred lift pass. They dispersed their eco credentials widely and cant be the only ones.
The huge investment in hydro infrastructure is evident throughout this area, with miles of tunnels through the mountains bringing water to the power stations. And solar roof panels don't seem practical in the snow!
Quite a lot of environmental impact for an environmentally friendly energy source then...
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
foxtrotzulu wrote:
Is there a market? Not sure. TBH I don't think many holiday makers give a monkey's about how eco-friendly a resort is. I can't see you being able to charge a premium for it. It would make a nice little strap-line on the marketing blurb, but not much more than that.
That might well be true for retrofitting green tech to an existing resort, but I suspect that for any new development green initiatives will be (are?) increasingly important in obtaining necessary planning consents etc.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Also - the power doesn't have to be locally produced - all large resorts are connected to the grid. And yes, hydro does have quite a large impact - however so does almost *any* other form of energy generation.... so the fact that it's a very reliable renewable energy source that in theory can be harnessed for hundreds of years.... perhaps it's not so bad ?
(And again I'll point out that the major issue is wastage - not generation).
Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much on Thu 7-01-16 14:50; edited 1 time in total
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Good point about new planning consents Tubaski
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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1. High usage of electricity to run the lifts
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How significant the contibution of the solar is to the energy the lift uses I don't know
Several more recent installations are net generators of electricity, but I'll admit, I'm not sure if they cheat the numbers a bit by using 8 months of idle lift but active PV to compensate for power taken from the grid for the ski season.
edit: and even if the resort runs for MTBing and Hiking in summer, in general only a small subset of the lifts are required for that.
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4. Electricity to power snow cannons
probably as above. and the water for them all comes from purpose made reservoirs.
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3. Fairly destructive measures to create pistes
depends on locality. certainly seen lots of blasting and rubble in some places (some to stabilise landslides, so that's less of an issue).
other places the only destruction is chopping a line of trees for the lift, and the pistes run over meadows, where the only "destruction" is the reeling in of all the electric fences at the end of summer and placing of permanent snow cannon poles.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Green credentials might help to get permission for a new lift or whatever, but it doesn't alter my point that the punters don't really care one way or another.
Incidentally, why are we focussing on a Eco-friendly ski resort? We should be worrying a bit more about the factories and towns elsewhere which are the real culprits. An Eco-friendly ski resort is little more than a gimmick. IMO what matters most in the mountains is that we focus on preserving the natural beauty and richness of the environment. I.e where are lifts situated, are the forests protected, etc.? To litter the slopes with wind turbines and solar panels would be a catastrophe.
@solski, What is the thinking behind your suggestion that 90% of the energy generated is wasted?
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Have an automated system that loads snow from the top of the moutain on to something that latches on to the bottom of chair lifts and gondolas. and then dumps it at various locations further down hill.
Cuts down on snowmaking further down the mountain and makes lifts more efficient as the weight of the snow going downhill will reduce the amount of uphill pull needed.
Have generating wheels on the bottom of skis, small battery packs that recharge back into the system at points in the resort?
Never send a lift up unless is is full - like many North American resorts do.
No piste grooming
Have gaint refridgerated snowmaking in the valley and use the heat generated for hotels an apartments
Have a power station in the valley that uses snowboards left outside restaurants fo fuel.
Use large solar umbrellas to shield the pist from the sun and also generate electricity for the resort.
Shove wind turbines everywhere
Have huge out of alps parking areas and make everyone arrive by coach or train
As for 90% of our energy is wasted - Very difficult to prove that. Depends how you define useful and wasted energy. We are getting a lot more efficient and wasting less.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Snow cannons are not just about the electricity; its also about water consumption and the additives
Rocky Mountain Institute published a series of carefully researched documents - first was a book called "Factor 4x", which put forward the concept that we could do 4x as much with the energy we generate.... then, over the years since, we've found that in actual fact, it's quite viable to consider a Factor 10x (i.e. we are now able to do 10x as much with the same amount of energy - or you can conclude that we currently waste approx 90% of the energy we use).
See : http://www.rmi.org/10xE
Just as a tiny example of this, our computer server in our offices used to draw approx 300W... we now power it from approx 10W. That's a 30x Factor.
I think there may well be that scope for energy efficiency in North America where energy usage per head is rather obscene.
Europe has always had a much more conservative approach, with taxes on fuel driving that as much as anything else. Germany and Scandanavia have always probably the most environmentally snesitve countries on Earth.
Ultimately, the problem is down to people and equal women's rights across the globe, leading to decreasing rapid population growth in some regions is the biggest factor in achieving global sustainability and balance.
Some would argue that China, despite it's massive growth in emmisions over recent years, has done more to help the environment than any other country by the measures it took to curb population growth.
The video is right about two of the factors - lifestyle choices and design. The third, and by some way, the most important factor is population size.
Foxtrotzulu - I question your comment "punters don't really care one way or another" - I note that some of the really popular ski gear is done by Picture - who use 100% recycled materials.... Dakine is also taking a similar approach.... so I'm not sure you're right there. People do care... and the ones that don't will die off soon enough.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
We are UK based.... when we do energy surveys we can often reduce power usage by about 70%.... sometimes more. We've been energy consultants for approx 20 years.
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well swapping out a 300W PC for a 30W PC (which can be very possible) doesn't really compare to swapping out a 3kW motor in a chair lift for a 300W motor. and as I said, many new installations are actually a net generator now.
water for snow cannon in EU will be served by a purpose built reservoir. and from what I saw this year in summer, those small eyesore reservoirs make useful water sources for forest fire choppers doing collect and drop loops.
water for ever expanding mountain villages and concrete monstrosities. now that's not eco.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
^^ Not many seem to use a good counterweight system yet (cable-cars can get close). And besides - what about the motors themselves - ultra high efficiency motors are a good amount more efficient than the common standard type (almost 2x as efficient). And then you have overall energy management - why do the lifts run when there is no-one on them ? A smart control would stop the lift if no-one is on it - perhaps with a couple of green flashing (LED) lights at strategic locations to re-assure users that the lift is open ?
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
wouldn't the most environmentally thing you could do is not set up a new ski resort?
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
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And then you have overall energy management - why do the lifts run when there is no-one on them ?
how often is there no one on a lift, even in January? very rarely
The real saving would come from shutting (almost) duplicate lifts in low season which some resorts do a bit of
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
who cares, when the solar panels on the roof generate a self-sufficient amount of power?
maybe there has been a recent progression in motors where you can get the same mechanical output for 1/10th of the power?
yes technological advances in CPUs has allowed computers to now consume very few watts compared to 300W+ that was needed before.
yes technological advances in recent years has allowed LED lights to use 6W instead of 60W for an acceptable number of lumens output. (but there's a massive waste there when most of the photons coming out of the lights don't get reflected in to people's retinas )
but motors? to move people up a mountain?
can't say I've ever seen a lift empty enough to stop it entirely. escalators in stations and shopping centres, I have. more likely to move to a run slow state.
and there's even spare PV capacity on the lift to have heated seats
spose you could have 1000 sand bags, and employ a guy to load one on every return chair so gravity helps a bit, and another guy to take them off at the bottom. then cart them back up to the top with the piste bashers at the end of the day. They've got to go up anyway!
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
You seemed to care as you commented on the power of the lifts ?
And I've seen plenty of lifts running without anyone on them... especially the more remote ones in larger ski areas.
And as I said motor efficiency has improved from approx 50% to approx 90%.
And with any spare capacity (well managed) you export the power to other parts of the resort - or some of the lifts on north-facing mountain sides (more likely just export it to the grid, which often powers those lifts anyway). Thus making the entire lift system draw less from the grid.
Anyhow... we're splitting hairs here... the point is that there is tons of room for improvement if carefully thought about.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thus making the entire lift system draw less from the grid.
as I said. the newest ones are net generators, not net consumers.
I guess they could buy a new motor and export a little more.
or an extra PV panel and keep the old motor.
or another extra PV panel and add seat heating (standard on most new Austrian installations now).
I'd worry more about finding savings from the hotels tbh, since building a town on the side of a mountain, or turning a small hamlet into town isn't exactly eco. to the point that some popular places is impossible to even get planning permission. it's not the power cable up the hill that's the problem, but the water pipe needed to sustain that many people.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Sorry to be critical but this is a ridiculous way to portray statistics. If there were 100 people on the planet and you murdered somebodt you've done just as much damage as if there were a thousand people and you murdered someone. An axtra billion people will cause an extra billion peoples worth of environmental damage, regardless of what percentage that is. When I was a Physics teacher I took a load of A'level students to Cambridge to hear some ofteh world's top academics lecture on climate change. All of them seemed to agree the biggest problem was population growth coupled with the countries with the larets populations going through their industiral revolutions at the moment.
Electric motors are hugely efficient things in the scheme of things, far more so than the diesel motors bashing pistes.
That said, Moving people up hill requires considerably more energy than simply maintaining a velocity against air resistance and rolling friction, such as a car. Ski lifts have very powerful electric motors and ski resorts have huge electric bills.
Generating near to useage site ishelpfu las there is always energy loss in transmission, particualrly as very remote areas do not have the very high voltage transmission systems associated with a large grid system. The higher the voltage, the less teh energy lossin transmission.
Most our enesrgy use is for heating - be it our homes, apartments or water. All of this energy is eventually lost - or wasted, depending on how you look at it as everything will cool down to the temperature of it's surroundings - entropy and all that. Insulation and glazing are massively important to slow this cooling process and reduce the need to turn onteh heaters, however they are sourced.
So here's some simple tips to help when away skiing.
Shower don't bath.
Turn off radiators and heaters in rooms when you are not in them. Turn down thermostats and wear thick clothing around the apartment.
Use public transport or share lifts to resort.
Turn the heating off in your apartment and all go and sit in a bar for the evening with many others
Don't shower snow off the pistes when you stop - bashers have to push it back.
Carve your turns through the snow rather than steet by moving snow about the mountain - for reasons above
Turn your fridge off in your apartment and leave your food and beer on the balcony
Don't visit resorts with heated lifts
Ski at a resort close to home.
Never fly to a ski resort
Don't use hot tubs, saunas or pools. I dread to think of the emmisions of the outdoor heated pool at La Clusaz!
Light your own flatulence - though burning fuel and producing CO2, methane is far more effective as a greenhouse gas so it's beter to burn it - all the better if your indoors as it will slightly heat the room.
Only drink cold drinks and eat cold foods
thermostatic valves ftw
PS don't turn those right off for extended periods. They jam shut, but usually the "hit it with a hammer" trick fixes it. Bin Dare Dun Dat.
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Turn your fridge off in your apartment and leave your food and beer on the balcony
vin du balcon
don't leave bottles there too long. although it is a cool (sic) way to demonstrate expansion of (mostly) water as it passes from room temperature to subzero. or a handy way to open a bottle if you have no corkscrew
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Don't visit resorts with heated lifts
can't. they're all heated now.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Ah well.... as a physics teacher who's attended a lecture by top academics.... you must know it all.
I'll leave it there.
Ah well.... as a physics teacher who's attended a lecture by top academics.... you must know it all.
Quite a supercilious comment particularly as @cameronphillips2000 is right; the statistical treatment of population growth in that clip is meaningless in terms of its impact on absolute levels of CO2 production or indeed on the use of global resources in general.
If you don’t understand that then perhaps you’re not as clever as you believe yourself to be.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
solski wrote:
Ah well.... as a physics teacher who's attended a lecture by top academics.... you must know it all.
I'll leave it there.
If only I did.....
After all it is free
After all it is free
Interesting discussion. I hope it don't stop here.
I'm not sure many skiers would be particularly attracted to a "green" resort. Apart from the unfortunate connotation, skiers on the whole go for the snow and the lifts, and any "Eco" claims would be way down the list of influences on choice of resort.
Meantime I'm sure resorts are looking carefully at ways of reducing their energy bill. Reducing the number of lifts is one simple way, and seems to be part of the current La Plagne plan - not so popular with La Plagne regulars.
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These things are usually best driven forwards by policy rather than ethics. Planning regualtions are probably the best way.
For example, part L of UK building regs (insulation) has probably done more to reduce the nation's carbo footprint more than anything else.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
gryphea wrote:
Snow cannons are not just about the electricity; its also about water consumption and the additives
Snow cannons don't consume any water at all, they just retain it on the mountain a little longer. I'm not sure about other resorts, but 3V don't use any additives at all.
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