Last friday, I was able to participate in two different experiments: the air power balloon and another one called “a battery that makes cents.”
The air power balloon experiment was very interesting. You could actually comprehend and understand the logic behind the experiment as you’re doing it. First, I had to blow into the balloon to verify it had a good quality. Secondly, I had to insert a straw into to the balloon and tape the ends so that no air would come out as I blow into the straw to fill the balloon. Shakyves, the chair of that team, build a car made of syrofoam; and the wheels were build nicely and intelligently enough to avoid any kind of friction. Finally, he attached the straw with the ballon at the end to the car, with the ballon (not yet filled with air) facing the back of the car. Here’s the experiment. For the first time, I just had to blow into the straw, fill up the balloon and hold the end to prevent the air from fleeing the balloon; at Shakyves mark, I then release the straw, and the car moved all the way down to the table. The second time I had to re-do the same thing but with a weight on top of the car; and the goal was to see how the speed and the distance travelled would differ. Here are the data:
*The area of the straw 0.007m A=pi*r2 A=3.14*0.0035m2=0.0000385m
the forces are at F=.018/.0000385=467.53.
-Test 1. No weight
.83s 4.36/5= .87s 120cm/.87s= 137.93cm/s2
-Test 2, adding 20g to it
1.41s 7.13s/5=1.43s 120cm/1.43s=83.91cm/s2.
My other experiment was “the battery that makes cents” which according to the team, was a title made from a joke, explaining how it makes actual sense to use “cents” to create voltage. It was more of “watch and learn” type of experiment then the first one. They had a multimeter, with to electrodes, aluminum paper in which they had a pile of cents (nickel and pennies separated by pieces of paper previously immersed into a solution of vinegar and salt). Apparently, Vinegar was the electrolyte and salt that contains NaCl was the key to the relation between the cents and the solution. Indeed, nickels have Zinc in them which are charged negatively and pennies have Copper, which are charged positively. Therefore, the Na+ goes to Cu (copper) and the Cl- goes to Zn (zinc). Here are the datas in Volts:
The Mendocino motor is a solar powered magnetically levitated motor. It was invented by Larry Springs and constructed and designed by Huib Visser with plans of Tom Vales. The motor base consists of five sets of magnets. Four magnets in the base are levitation magnets which provides levitation force against the shaft magnets. The fifth magnet, is a field magnet which provides the magnetic field for the rotor. The back plate has a piece of glass as a bearing plate.
The rotor consists of a shaft with a point on one end, magnets and rotor block. On the rotor block, there are four solar cells; one cell on each of the four sides and two sets of windings.
Now this is how it works. The rotor is levitated by the repelling force between the shaft magnets and the levitation magnets on the base. The levitation magnet also provides a forward thrust to keep the shaft point against the bearing plate.
When the light strikes one of the solar cells, it generates an electric current thus energizing one of the rotor windings. This produce an electromagnetic field which interacts with the field magnets in the base, causing the rotor to turn. As the rotor rotates, the next solar cell comes in position, this cell now energizes the second winding. The process repeats again.
Thomas Vale actually has a website, where he provides the equipment to make Mendocino motors. It’s good to know that anyone could reproduce such a great engine.
Although I did not have the chance to go to M.I.T last week, I was able to get a fair amount of information on their website. The MIT nuclear reactor, which is very old by the way (nearly 50 years old) is according to them, a mean of research (material, medical, etc.) The reactor itself has two systems: a cooling system and a monitoring system.
Monitors take automatic actions, such as automatically sealing off the containment building ventilation, should they detect abnormal radiation levels. For the cooling system, the reactor produce heat which is converted into electricity. There is a primary and a secondary water system which prevent radioactivity). The water that flows through the core, in addition to being a moderator essential to the operation of the reactor, also serves as a coolant. That leads us to the fission process which is when the nucleus receives a neutron that breaks it in to parts; of course, a lot of energy is generated in this process.
Finally, there is the description of the core of the reactor. The core consists of 27 positions, most of which are filled with fuel elements, such as the one shown in position C-9. The remaining two to four positions are filled with either a solid aluminum “dummy” element or an In-Core Experiment.
The location of the core is within two concentric tanks; the use of anti-siphon valves to isolate the core from the effect of breaks in the coolant piping; a core-tank design promotes natural circulation in the event of a loss-of-flow accident; and there is the presence of a full containment. Although these features make it “an exceptionally safe facility” like they stated on their website, the MIT nuclear reactor still has materials that can be used to make atomic bombs; and that has to count as some kind of leverage for the U.S government. I believe that this could give birth to an interesting subject on the matter.
I remember very well the Fukushima incident; I also recall at that time not fully knowing the extent or the reasons of that catastrophe. All I knew (all i thought I knew really) was that a tsunami caused a nuclear plant to be damaged, and a meltdown followed, endangering people living in all the areas affected. But let’s get the real facts:
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 inundated 561 square kilometers of coastline, reaching up to 5 kilometers inland. The disaster wrought havoc from Aomori Prefecture in the north to Chiba Prefecture in the south (about 35 kilometers east of Tokyo); aftershocks affected areas far beyond the coast. The earthquake and tsunami combined may have killed nearly 23,600 people and severely damaged or destroyed more than 187,000 homes. Damage to the region s industrial facilities also has been extensive. Oil refineries burst into flames in the days after the disaster, sending black smoke billowing into the air. Sewer and gas lines burst, and old electrical equipment containing “polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) was washed away.” ” Petro- and agrochemical plants, iron foundries, steel works, and automotive, electronics, food processing, paper, plastics, and pharmaceutical plants were among those that suffered damage.
As cleanup might still continue in the disaster area, questions remain about the fate of chemical contaminants released by these damaged industrial facilities and other sources, and the environmental health they might pose to the hundreds of thousands of people living and working in this area. This brings us to our next subtopic which is Japan’s new energy strategy. According to Bloomberg finance, Japan has lost 20% of its nuclear electricity supply; and their analyst basically said that hey should rebuild a nuclear reactor. In another article on Jstor (referring to the Library and Archive source under Tags below), Asian countries, including Japan, have been introduced to SRI (Social Responsibility Investment). And some of those countries chose to invest on nuclear power. Concerning Japan, they are basically focusing on Oil and on more nuclear power.”The strategy is expected to call for raising the percentage of nuclear power in the total national electricity supply from the current 30% to between 30% and 40% or more in 2030 and also establishing a nuclear fuel cycle.” However, this new policy of theirs upsets local and international ties; It calls for the abolishment of nuclear power by the 2030s, but it seems that this latest update does nothing to pacify the unrest in the island nation, and has only worsened the central governments relationship with its own people and international allies. Something worth the attention though: The draft policy is founded upon three principles, that no reactor should operate over 40 years, that no reactor should be restarted without proper safety clearance from regulators, and that no new reactors should be constructed.
The movie basically talked about Nuclear Power and also re-portrayed the events of Fukushima, and Chernobyl. It focused a lot on the description of how these events were harmful and I believe the point made here was the lack of safety regarding nuclear power. Of course, we could easily see that there were a certain amount of people that were against nuclear power and they had their reasons. Among them, Mark Lynas, who was against it; his reason was simple, “I am an environmentalist.”
In my opinion, Nuclear isn’t particularly as dangerous as fossil fuel combustion for instance. The fact that it kills fewer people than coal mining is a valid fact to use to back this statement up. Furthermore, I believe that people do not seem to take monetary cost into account. Fukushima killed fewer people because they evacuated a huge area. Much of that was farmland (as with the gigantic Chernobyl exclusion zone) and Japan just lost 150,000 acres of productive land according to their review on Fukushima, not to mention the all the money stranded in the infrastructure and buildings for a city of 100,000 people. Then there are the costs of the resettlement itself and the costs from the psychological effects on the displaced population.
However, we are never too safe. Even though nuclear reactor is a clean form of energy, as opposed to other sources of energy, the reactor itself can be harmful to us. Scientific progress can very much be a double hedged sword. Future reactors will probably be even “safer”. But proving that they’re safe over long periods of time in a convincing manner is basically impossible to do, at least for now. At the end of the day, both sides (nuclear or not) want to protect the earth. Nuclear power says it’s clean and fossil fuels are not; Those who are anti-nuclear are basically saying that they’d rather burn fossil fuels than to live in fear with a possible nuclear power catastrophe. This is a very controversial subject. Overall, this movie also makes you wonder about their goal in relation to the targeted audience…
Oil gut, low prices and the increasing use of energy are in stark contrast to efforts to control and reduce carbon dioxide emissions to try to moderate destabilization of the weather machine. Over-optimistic assessment of the potential for renewable energy and disaffection with nuclear energy will dash hopes of reducing carbon dioxide emissions unless fiscal instruments such as carbon taxes are introduced and society’s attitude to conspicuous attitude reversed. Scientists affirm that, by the middle of the next century oil, and probably gas, will be running into short supply and reducing carbon dioxide emissions will have become a stark necessity. “Clean energy”, that is a mix of renewable and nuclear energy will become way ahead.
For this topic, one of the examples that I found worth mentioning was China’s. In fact, the country is today the world’s largest consumer of energy; it has a coal industry with an annual output surpassing half a billion tons of raw fuel, a rapidly expanding hydrocarbon recovery program, and an extensive program of water power utilization. A quantitative analysis of major rural energy flows in the People’s Republic of China shows that the nations’ countryside still depends predominantly on solar radiation transformed by green plants through photosynthesis into food, feel, fuel. and raw materials. Although a large scale modernization effort currently under wait aims to greatly increase the consumption of fossil fuels and electricity, it is argued that the country should not completely abandon its renewable rural energetics.
Another example: of course, when we find an interest on the efforts around the world on that subject, Germany comes instantaneously in mind. In fact, an article from The New York Times speaks about Germany having issues with their goal in solar energy. Families and businesses are worried about the rising cost of electricity.Newly constructed offshore wind farms churn unconnected to an energy grid still in need of expansion. And despite all the costs, carbon emissions actually rose last year as reserve coal-burning plants were fired up to close gaps in energy supplies.
“Often, I don’t go into my living room in order to save electricity,” said Olaf Taeuber, 55, who manages a fleet of vehicles for a social services provider in Berlin. “You feel the pain in your pocketbook.”
Even so, with his bill growing rapidly, he found himself seeking help last week to fend off a threat from Berlin’s main power company to cut off his electricity, in spite of his efforts to use little electricity. That is, without doubt, one of the most notable effort on the use of solar energy that I came across my researches.
Olaf Taeuber had to seek help last week to fend off a threat from a power company to cut off his electricity, despite his efforts to use little of it. By Melissa Eddy and Stanley Reed
Because the program has the support of German political parties across the spectrum, there has been no highly visible backlash during the current election campaign. But continuing to put the program in place and maintaining public support for it will be among Germans’ higher ups biggest challenge.
The goal of the experiment was to know the amount of voltage photovoltaic effect in Silicon solar cell. We had to measure the voltage output of the solar cell and the light intensity output of the light sensor of the NXT. First, we had to start with distance 0 and no light, than 0 cm with light, then respectively 4, 8, 12, and 16cm. This experiment showed variations of voltage (increasing between 0 and 5, decreasing between 5 and 8 and going back up afterwards). See Exhibit below
The conclusion I got from that is that the intensity of Voltage does not depend on the distance from the light.
The second part of the experiment was to try and see the difference if we incorporated colors: Green, Purple and Red. The results were the following: the color green had the lowest voltage, followed by the red color. Purple had the highest voltage. A conclusion in this case would assume that color does depend on the intensity of the voltage.
After doing some research in the purpose of trying to understand the meaning of these results, I found out there were color codings, and that those were universal among all of the power supplies; for example Red was +5V, green represented power on input and Purple: standby power output (not needed for RepRap).
I was doing this experiment with Ben Paquette; and I had a lot of fun watching him working out literally. But on a more serious note, this again shows you how motion is a generator. Ben had 140 shakes going in the first time, then 120, and of course the number of his shakes keep decreasing until the fifth time. The numbers were obviously different in regards to the “Sum of Squares” but we could see every fluctuations. And that made me think: how great would be if we have something like thi generate for a longer period of time? I made some research and this idea of “Perpetual motion” found me.
“Perpetual motion describes motion that continues indefinitely without any external source of energy.[2] This is impossible in practice because of friction and other sources of energy loss.[3][4][5] Furthermore, the term is often used in a stronger sense to describe a perpetual motion machine of the first kind, a “hypothetical machine which, once activated, would continue to function and produce work”[6] indefinitely with no input of energy. There is a scientific consensus that perpetual motion is impossible, as it would violate the first or second law of thermodynamics.[4][5]”
“Slick water hydraulic fracturing, also known as hydrofracking, is a new development in natural gas extraction. The process was created by Halliburton Inc. (well known for its work in Iraq and elsewhere), Schlumberger Inc., and Messina Inc. This process makes mining for natural gas in dense shale more economically possible, where before it was not.”
Anyone made the link? Water….Yes! there’s our problem. When I got a good understanding of the definition, the first concern that I had right away was “this is not conventional drilling!” So i did a little bit more of research and found that extraction of natural gas from hard-to-reach reservoirs has indeed expanded around the world and poses multiple environmental threats to surface waters. Improved drilling and extraction technology used to access low permeability natural gas requires millions of liters of water and a suite of chemicals that may be toxic to aquatic biota.
There is also growing concern among the scientific community and the general public that rapid and extensive natural gas development in the US could lead to degradation of natural resources. Gas wells are often close to surface waters that could be impacted by elevated sediment runoff from pipelines and roads, alteration of streamflow as a result of water extraction, and contamination from introduced chemicals or the resulting wastewater. However, the data required to fully understand these potential threats are currently lacking. Scientists therefore need to study the changes in ecosystem structure and function caused by natural gas extraction and to use such data to inform sound environmental policy.
I actually found an article that were specifically addressing the issue:
“Slick water hydrofracking involves a process that utilizes 6-8 million gallons of freshwater per fracking (though this varies with the depth of the shale and the gas deposits), and sand or other lighweight “proppants” (substances used to prop open the fissures caused by the well bore to allow the gas to seep through the pores in the shale). Following the injection of both the water and the proppant, several chemical-based additives are used to create a more timely, efficient, and overall more economic process. Some of the chemical additives frequently used include: diesel fuel, biocides, benzene (an additive to gasoline and industrial solvent), and hydrochloric acid. “
Companies employing this method of natural gas extraction have resisted efforts to require disclosure of what chemicals and in what amounts they use, only assuring us they these chemicals are used in “small amounts”. However, that is generally unspecific, and some of these chemicals might just be harmful at any level of exposure. This matters because if any of these chemicals were to mingle with the water table, it is possible that people’s drinking water could be affected.
Additionally, how companies are containing the slick water post-fracking varies from company to company, sometimes with a great potential for soil and groundwater contamination.
In an article on Reviews, there was this interesting topic about 11 technologies that automakers use to improve fuel economy. According to the article, “these range from turbocharging an engine, to improving the transmission, to electrifying specific components.” One of the old technologies used were the turbochargers. Some other newer innovations that cut fuel use, such as the use of idle stop and dual-clutch transmissions. They also said in the article that “consumers are trying to cope with increasing gas prices, and governments are pushing for reduced carbon dioxide emissions, which relate directly to fuel economy.” I am no expert obviously in the topic, but the definition of fuel economy as stated in the web is that it’s a “number that corresponds to the amount of miles that a vehicle can travel on a gallon of gasoline, referred to as miles per gallon (MPG). The higher the MPG of a vehicle, the more eco-friendly it is likely to become, and the less it is dependent on non-renewable resources.” From that point on, I think it’s safe to say that the automakers are going to change the face of production in regards to the environment. Indeed, if they can create new technologies and produce great cars that are eco-friendly, the benefits (profit and social) are going to be exponentially positive. Everybody likes a good invention that is efficient for today’s world and eco-friendly at the same time; especially in these “very climate sensitive times” !
They say that fuel economy is a well-defined measure familiar to anybody who has bought a car in the U.S. I stumbled on another term: fuel efficiency. Which according to John Heywood, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and past Director of the Sloan Automotive Laboratory, is a looser, descriptive term referring to how efficiently a vehicle uses fuel.Heywood, whose research looks at potential strategies for lowering transportation’s fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, notes that both terms are important in thinking about how to change the U.S.’s gas-hungry car culture. What we really ought to be thinking about, he says, is fuel consumption, measured in gallons per mile—not the customary miles per gallon. Reducing our fuel consumption, developing hybrid and electric cars, and establishing access to alternative fuels, will be of vital environmental and economic importance.
