Demand Response is the modern way of consuming enemy where the consumer plays a significant role in the operation of the electric grid. This power consuming technique is based on regulating the amount of power the grid has to provide at the peak times. The reduction of the consumed power can be done by temporarily reducing non-critical systems such as heating, cooling, and lighting; or turning on standby generators for short periods of time in businesses and homes.  These short periods of time represent the peaks in which the grid has to run on full capacity during extremely hot or cold weather, and some spot event. The Demand Response technique, thus, prevents the grid from block outs, reduces the number of old-inefficient power plants that are needed for keeping the grid up running at the peaks, and increase the reliability of green energy source.

Many organizations, nowadays, offer Demand Response management to businesses and pay them for participating. These organizations use a very advanced real time monitoring system to track energy consumption. And based on the information they get, the organizations contact their participants so they start to lower their power consumption and level down the peak. This technique results in lower price and more sustainable grid.

http://energy.gov/oe/technology-development/smart-grid/demand-response

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Demand+Response/

http://breakingenergy.com/2014/12/12/new-development-in-demand-response-ruling-signals-possible-supreme-court-review/

The Sawyer library offers a very good environment for studying in which I strongly need as a student. I personally like to do my assignment at the library where I have complete access to everything from the database to the huge collection of books to the tutors in the center for academic success. What I love about the Sawyer library is that it is inclusive with all that I mentioned beside the group rooms, computer tables, and big tables that make the perfect setting for completing whatever assignment I have whether it’s writing, reading, online researching or even watching a movie.

Personally, I like to think of the library as my second home where I spend much time that might be more than that I spend in my own room. There is an Arabic expression that says “the most loyal friend a man can have is a book”. And books are the friends I turn to when I’m not feeling alright. I keep reading about different thing and travel to where the reading takes me; away from stress and anxiety, away from harsh cold and heat, and away from school and long homework. And even though I’m sometimes not at the library physically, I am in the library online. The Sawyer library has a huge collection of electronic books that is almost equivalent that of hard copies.

In short, the Sawyer library is a perfect library for me as a student and as a person.

GMOs! I knew nothing about them growing up, until my father once came from a business trip to Argentina. And since he loves gardening, this trip was a golden opportunity to discover new types of fruit and vegetables and bring seeds home. He brought a bag filled with seed packages labeled with pretty pictures of different kinds of plants. When I saw all the packages, I got so excited but my father seemed disturbed and caught up in reading the back of the packages. He, then, started dividing them into two groups, one on his left hand side where I was sitting and the other on his right. He kept dividing till no more packages were left in the bag. He then looked at me playing with the packages round me and said “we’re burning those”.

As you expected, the packages went to hill were for genetically modified seeds, or in my father’s words, “unreal manipulated plants.” Since then, GMOs were nothing more than a scientific breakthrough that is fun to read and watch documentaries about. My parents prevented us from GMOs as much as possible. They would only cook what we grow in the house garden and the farm and the food from local farms. Mom always said “if you want to stay healthy, stay with organic food”, and that makes perfect sense to me. However, it’s not the same sense Margaret Wille, the sponsor of the ban on GMOs, establishes in her move to ban GMOs from the island of Hawaii.

GMO technology is used mostly on corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets to make them more resistant to weeds and pests. However, Mrs. Wille is adapting the idea of that GMOs are putting the public health at risk. She supports her claim by real world facts of the cancer rats are developing, the rise in childhood allergies, the out-of-control superweeds, the genetic contamination, the overuse of pesticides, and the disappearance of butterflies and bees. Such claim is strong enough to make GMOs in Hawaii a big national controversy where the majority stands against GMOs. However, the scientific community of the World Health Organization, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science found no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.

The controversy on GMOs has supporters how believe that this biotechnology has saved some of the locals’ businesses in Hawaii and it might save not only businesses, but lives also in other places in the world. In Hawaii, the local papaya farms were in danger of a virus that devastated papaya varieties. And in In the Philippines, for example, genetically engineered rice is being tested to address Vitamin A deficiency among the world’s poor.

The two sides of the controversy about GMOs will keep going even though all the scientific evidence supports GMOs. Though, when my mom talks about organic food, I know it’s healthier for me. Most organic food comes from local farms which they have adapted the environment in which the plants live in. The harvested crop, thus, include all the antibiotics and vitamins my body needs to stay healthy in the same area.

Climate change issue is no longer from the past. It’s here causing health problems mainly those related to heat stress, air pollution, extreme weather events, and many others. Not only this; the climate change already cost the American economy about $100 billion in 2012. With no doubt, climate change is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed before it’s too late. And here where president Obama comes to establish the Clean Power Plan.

Climate change is empowered mainly by the carbon pollution which occupies 84% of the total greenhouse emission in the United States. The other 16% includes other gases like Methane, Nitrous Oxide, and fluorinated gases. As it appears in the diagram, 40% of carbon dioxide gas emission comes from power plants. The president’s plan basically reduces greenhouse gas emission by replacing fossil fuel with renewable energy sources to generate power, and uses the generated power more efficiently. This plan should cut about 30% of the U.S. greenhouse emission by 2030.

Today, the U.S. is progressing in the field of green energy. In the last decade, the electricity generated from air power has tripled in the U.S.; the solar power has increase more than tenfold; And the U.S. is wasting less energy by developing more fuel-efficient vehicles and building more energy-efficient homes. Keeping the level of progress along with the guideline to cut air pollution will not only make a better environment, but it will make a better economy also. The more a country relies on renewable energy, the closer it gets to be energy-independent. Energy-independence means tens of hundreds of thousands of new jobs will be created for Americans to grew the economy.

Health benefits from this plan are not less than the economic benefits. Though, the economy increases proportionally with the increase of public health. The plan will help to avoid up to 6,600 premature deaths, up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children, and up to 490,000 missed work or school days, which worth about $93 billion in the public health.

This plan is made to lead the United State to go green, and then to lead the world to go green. Global Warming is not a national problem, it’s an international issue that needs all the world to join in in order to solve it. And since everybody is joining in sooner or later, there must be a leader. Today, The United States of America is stepping forward to take the lead.

A robot; the first things come to my mind when I think of this word are androids⁽¹⁾ like R2D2⁽²⁾ and C3PO⁽³⁾ from Star Wars, the Japanese robot ASIMO⁽⁴⁾, and the high-tech robots Boston Dynamics⁽⁵⁾ develops. Such robots are very interesting to watch documentaries about, but they are too sophisticated to try building them. However, I got the chance to build my Lego-Mindstorm robot which is relatively very small and simple, but it’s still called “a robot,” a big word in my mind.

Building a Lego-Mindstorm robot starts with structuring the robot itself, and then programing and testing it. The robot was structured as a car that uses two motors to move and a mainframe processor to operate the motors according an uploaded program. Since the entire robot parts are made, the robot only needed to be assembled according to the instructions of “Basic Car Building Using NXT Lego Kit”. Following instructions to build your own robot! It doesn’t really sound that much interesting, but in fact, it is very interesting. Building the robot was a team work which gave me the chance to discuss some aspects of the car design with my partner. For instance, we discussed why we’re using only one non-motorized wheel in the front instead of two, and why we’re using a motor for each of the two rear wheel while we could have used one motor to move both wheels. This made the building experience much more interesting than just following instructions.

After assembling the robot parts, programming the robot was the next step. Using the software LabVIEW, we created a simple program to move the car forward, backward, and in a circle. LabVIEW has built-in little programs and tools that we put together to make a complete program for the desired task. We used a little program for each motor to run it forward and backward on different power levels. It didn’t take much time till we’re done programming and we’re ready to have a little contest. Even though the contest wasn’t serious, it gave everybody in the class the spirit of achievement. Every team was programming and testing, and reprogramming and testing again. During this time, the class was very active and dynamic. This was my favorite time in my experience building the car robot. I felt very excited to test our robot with the other teams and very satisfied about the results.

The last activity with the robot was using a program to measure the distance the robot run through and measure the same distance using a ruler, and then comparing the two results to find the percent error. It is basically collecting and analyzing data which, believe it or not, is something I love very much. I am already familiar with Microsoft Excel so I used it to record and analyze my measurements data.

In short, I enjoyed every bit of my experience building the car. I learned something new, I made a good team, and I built “a robot,” a big word in my mind.

⁽¹⁾  An android is a robot or synthetic organism designed to look and act like a human, especially one with a body having a flesh-like resemblance.

^{(2) – (3)} R2D2 and C3PO are science-fiction androids that appear in Star Wars movies.

⁽⁴⁾ ASIMO, is acronym for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility. it is a humanoid robot designed and developed by Honda.

⁽⁵⁾ Boston Dynamics is an engineering company that specializes in building dynamic robots and software for human simulation.

The automobiles industry is one of the biggest industries in the world, and as many other industries, automobile manufacturers are being challenged economically. Moreover, the industry is facing new challenges to satisfy the new rules Obama administration issued in 2012. Automakers now are required to improve the gas mileage to about the double by 2025.

Car-makers are approaching the challenge from different angles. Most cars nowadays are lighter, smaller, and more aerodynamic which are big improvements in the use of building materials. However, the big improvements are in the engines. All new cars running on gas are using turbo chargers; some care companies started to make hybrid engines; some others are developing high performance rotary engines for cars.

Hybrid Engines:

Hybrid-Electric Engine is a new technology used to improve fuel efficiency and performance in cars. Vehicles use this technology are called Hybrid-Electric Vehicles or (HEVs). This kind of vehicles is designed to a gasoline engine combined with an electric motor. Based on the external conditions, the car computer operates both the engine and the motor on different ratios to obtain a better performance and high fuel efficiency.

Features of HEVs:

–         Regenerative Breaking. The motor can apply resistance on the wheels to slow the car down. In return, the energy transferred form the wheels to the motor is converted into electricity to charge the battery.

–         Electric Motor Drive/ Assist. Accelerating, passing, and hill climbing is easier in HEVs since the motor provide more power to add on the power from the gasoline engine. In some cars, the electric motor can run the car by itself when driving with low speed.

–         Automatic Start/shutoff. HEVs has the ability to shut itself off when stopping and starts again when moving to minimize wasted energy.

Rotary Engine:

The rotary engine was invented in 1957 by the German Felix Wankel. Even though the idea of the Rotary Engine is very old, using it in cars is very new. The Rotary Engine is smaller than any traditional combustion engine, has less components, much lighter, and more fuel efficient than any gasoline engine. This engine is so powerful that it can run a racing car on track with two combustion chambers only.

This is a video to simplify understanding of the Rotary Engine main components and how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BCgl2uumlI

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