Brainstorming with my team.

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Last week me and my team started to come up with the ideas for the final project. We have researched numerous of experiments online and payed attention to what our classmates were doing. We did not have any good ideas until we all remembered our trip to the Museum Of Science. There we all had a chance to see how the windmill works and that’s when the evrika striked our minds. We decided that building a simple windmill with solar panels would be a great idea and will show us how they work in real life.

(Final version of our upcoming windmill)

That’s when our group leader found all the necessary work materials and assigned every member each task. Me and Marina are focusing on outline, for instance while the rest of the team is focusing on the presentation itself. I am lucky to have such an organized team which takes responsibility. It will be an awesome experience when the final presentation comes.

Thanks Eric Kebschull, An Duong, Jose Honold and Marina Sidenko for being a great team members to work with!

Demand Responce

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We use electricity every day. It is impossible to imagine a life of a modern person without electricity.  Computers, Cell Phones, even light bulbs, everything requires electricity today. When we turn on a any source which requires the usage of electricity like a TV or an air conditioner – it’s called a demand. Our demand for electricity is growing from day to day and scientists predict that demand will rise at least 40 percent by 2030

By saying demand resp­onse we mean the abi­lity to voluntarily trim our electricity usage at specific times of the day (such as peak hours) during high electricity prices, or during emergencies (such as preventing a blackout). Electricity blackouts, such as the one that hit the both Europe and the eastern United States and Canada in 2003, happen when the power supply is lost, usually caused by a malfunctioning electrical grid or component or by a supply-demand discrepancy. Blackouts aren’t just inconvenient, they’re also money pits. It’s been estimated the 2003 blackout cost New York City alone up to $750 million in lost revenue – States an article from the “USA today“.

Currently, huge industrial companies are looking at demand response solutions as an important piece to the infrastructure solution. These solutions also have the potential to help both the providers and consumers to save money, because such solutions could eliminate the need to build extra power plants and delivery systems which results in saving lots of money.

It was determined by The U.S. Department of Energy that “the average home uses about 11,000 kilowatt-hours annually. Consumers spend 8.3 cents per kWh, so that adds up to each household spending about $900 on electricity every year”.

In conclusion we can say that Demand response is indeed a great a way for people who consume lots of energy to make smarter decisions about the energy consumption. A smart grid which can be developed could also be a green energy grid which will have the ability to balance the energy output from fossil fuel-driven power generators and renewable energy sources.

 

 

 

A Trip to the Museum Of Science.

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Recently, we were given a unique opportunity to visit the Museum of Science in Boston. While in my class we have been studying the sources of energy and different approaches to get rid of the Global warming, in the Museum of Science we had a chance to see how each of the energy sources which people use nowadays work.

There were several exhibitions in the museum. Each represented the usage and the affection of the resource on ecology and the global warming itself. At first I decided to visit the Windmill section in the museum. The brief information about the windmill usage was provided as well as its efficiency. Pictures helped me to understand how they work better.

Then I decided to visit the solar energy section. This section was very interesting. There, you could even make your own experiment. You were give a small house and the amount of solar panels to manage. This exhibition also showed how much it would cost to own the needed amount of solar  panels and it also compared its affection on Global warming with the fossil fuels.

The last exhibit which I visited in the MOC was an interactive one where I was given a few power blocks of the each energy type which could be used to supply the electricity in Boston. There also was a special power panel with indicators showing the amount of energy which is used and its affection on the ecology as well.

Going to this exhibition was an amazing experience. The interactive experiments which were present really helped me to understand how badly fossil fuels affect the ecology and it also lead me to the conclusion that clean energy should be the one which must be used in future in order to reduce the Global Warming for sure.

Tom Vales Talk

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Recently, our Science and Innovation class had a unique opportunity to get acquainted with Tom Vales. An amazing professor who definitely knows how to introduce the physics to the class and make it entertaining at the same time. The main topic which Tom covered were types of engines and machines.The first experiment which the Professor introduced was the experiment with the stirling engine. The machine works with the help of heat. Professor Vales put the engine on top of a special cup filled with water. The heat which rose in the cup was trapped and under the piston created heat and as a result – a working machine. Tom added that the machine is 200 years old and is still widely used nowadays.

Next Professor Vales showed us the Peltier Junction. The machine generates an electric current and uses a thermoelectric effect to create very cold temperatures.

After that Tom introduced the Mendocino motor. It has 4 solar cell magnets which generate the power which the motor uses to levitate. This motor also uses its own magnetic field to float. The magnetic which the motor has converts light into electricity.

Professor Vales broadened our minds with the topic of electricity and how engines and motors use it. The office which the Professor has is amazing. The machines and gadgets there truly show the amazing power of Science and how electricity can be used to assist a person in daily life. I loved his method of explaining and he has a great personality as well. It was an amazing experience. Thanks Tom!

 

 

 

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

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2011 was a year very unfortunate for humanity full of natural disasters, especially for Japan where a series of earthquakes and tsunamis occurred and caused mass destruction. Fukushima nuclear plant was not an excpetion which only made things much worse. A series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials have occured which caused panic and chaos everywhere across Japan: cities and towns were evacuated. It was the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, and only the second disaster (along with Chernobyl) to measure Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

When the earthquake occurred the Reactor 4 had been defueled. Immediately after the earthquake, the remaining reactors 1-3 shut down automatically, and emergency generators came online to power electronics and coolant systems. Even though the tsunami following the earthquake quickly flooded the low-lying rooms in which the emergency generators were housed. The flooded generators failed, cutting power to the critical pumps that must continuously circulate coolant water through a nuclear reactor for several days in order to keep it from melting down after being shut down. As the pumps stopped, the reactors overheated and stopped working. As the water went away the reactor fuel rods began to overheat rapidly. In the hours and days that followed, Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced full meltdown.

Fukushima-meltdown-prevailing-winds1

The Japanese government concluded that the total amount of radiation released into the atmosphere was approximately one-tenth which was released during the Chernobyl disaster. Significant amounts of radioactive material have also been released into ground and ocean waters around Japan.

Sources used:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18718486
http://www.houseoffoust.com/fukushima/blueprint.html
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/japanquake/index.html

 

 

 

Solyndra scandal and the wisdom of clean energy subsidies.

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“Solar panel manufacturing — a potential source of middle-class jobs, and an important reason the White House was so high on Solyndra, which made its panels in Fremont, Calif. — is another story” – States NY times article.

We can not get away from politics in our modern life, politics are everywhere, we live in civilized countries, we have our leaders but sometimes the games which politicians play are not always clean and Environmental friendly energy and technology is not an exception. Back in August 31, 2011 Solyndra filed for bankruptcy the bankruptcy which the Republicans are now rabidly “investigating” because Solyndra had the misfortune to receive a $535 million federally guaranteed loan from the Obama administration. Moreover the solar panels which the company produced were very high-priced to begin with. This factor made Solyndra co. uncompetitive in the marketplace. Solyndra didn’t have enough influential and prosperous customers to create the necessary economies of scale. Also the executives of the company failed to dedicate additional money that would have allowed the company to stay in business.

On other hand, “The Obama Administration betrayed American taxpayers when it dumped hundreds of millions of public dollars into Solyndra while ignoring clear warnings about the company’s dire financial situation,” Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. Before receiving the loan from the Obama administration in 2010, Solyndra had been singled out by both Republicans and Democrats as a promising government investment. If there is another version of the bankruptcy of Solyndra, it’s the theory that the White House gave the company a loan guarantee, and then turned a back to its problems, because “its largest investors were funds linked to Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, an Obama donor.”

These sources clearly show us that the bankruptcy could have been prevented if the government payed more attention to the problems of Solyndra and helped them at the right time, but politics never change.

Sources used:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/opinion/the-phony-solyndra-scandal.html?_r=0
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/obama-fundraises-with-players-in-solyndra-scandal/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/09/the_dregs_of_the_solyndra_scandal.html

 

 

 

 

Experiment 2: Force and Energy, Velocity and Acceleration, and Power.

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Me and my partner Maria Sidenko were given a unique opportunity to see how Newton’s 2nd Law works in real life in our Science&Innovation class. Our task was to use the Lego Mindstorm motor to lift weights with a pulley in order to see how Newton’s 2nd Law works. Newton’s second law of motion shows the behavior of objects for which all existing forces are not balanced. The second law states that the acceleration of an object is dependent upon two variables – the net force acting upon the object and the mass of the object. We were using the VI to converse the results into the excel format which we later used to calculate Power, Acceleration as well as see how visually the results are(By creating a “Scatter” and a “Trendline”). We got the following table:

1

2 3 We have computed the potential energy by using the formula: Potential energy = m*g*h. Then we determined how the battery energy drainage changes throughout the experiment.  Since the energy of the battery was converted to the potential energy of the masses, we had greater masses and as a result got the greater battery drainage.  The experiment clearly showed us how the Newton’s 2nd Law works and how the potential energy is converted.

Class Experiment (02/13/13)

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In the lab experiment which we did last class we were practicing the Faraday’s Law. We were shaking a tube which had a magnet which traveled through a coil of wires.  We were supposed to show that the faster we shaked the tube, the greater the generated voltage would become. By using the VI program me and my colleague Marina Sidenko obtained the following results.

Here, it is noticeable that the more shakes there were – the greater the the sum of the squares of the voltages had become. This experiment showed us how the generated voltage increased and how the Faraday’s Law worked. I would like to thank my colleague Marina S. for the great job!

Natural Gas Hydraulic Fracturing.

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All of us use something every day. Everything is made out of something. Phones, furniture, cars, planes – all of those require some natural resources. Nowadays the amount of resources which humanity uses decreases every day. Scientists are working hard to find new ways to extract such resources like oil, natural gas and other. Natural gas at the same time runs out quite fast but recently a new way to obtain it has been found – the Hydraulic Fracturing which allows to increase or restore the rate at which fluids, such as petroleum, water, or natural gas. Such technology makes the production of natural gas possible even from rock formations deep below the earth’s surface. Fractures provide a conductive path connecting a larger volume of the reservoir to the well. So-called “super fracing”, which creates cracks deeper in the rock formation to release more oil and gas, will increase efficiency of hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is also applied in industry in many ways, for example:

  • To stimulate groundwater wells.
  • To precondition or induce rock to cave in mining.
  • As a means of enhancing waste remediation processes, usually hydrocarbon waste or spills.
  • To dispose of waste by injection into deep rock formations.
  • As a method to measure the stress in the earth.
  • For heat extraction to produce electricity in an enhanced geothermal systems.
  • To increase injection rates for geologic sequestration of CO2.

horizwell

Scientist predict that Hydraulic fracturing will account about 70% of natural gas development in the future. Hydraulic fracturing as well as horizontal drilling use the latest technologies and such technology is much more viable for companies to recover natural gas. For instance, In the United States, 45% of domestic natural gas production and 17% of oil production would be lost within 5 years without usage of hydraulic fracturing. In conclusion, we can say that such technology is very useful and has a great potential in future for many world companies. And if companies will start using this technology the resource decreasing will be drastically stopped!

References:

  1. National Petroleum Council, Prudent Development: Realizing the Potential of North America’s Abundant Natural Gas and Oil Resources, September 15, 2011.
  2. IHS Global Insight, The Economic and Employment Contributions of Natural Gas in the United States, December 2011
  3. Wikipedia: Hydraulic Fracturing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing)

 

Ways the automobile industry is using to increase gas mileage.

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Technology always improves, time doesn’t stop and humanity is creating more and more marvelous inventions. Machines like cars are a casual thing nowadays, most people in the world own at least one car. Cars can soon be called human’s best friend after dogs of course, but such friends like cars is a not a cheap deal to own especially when we are dealing with the gas mileage system which is used nowadays.

Electric and hybrid vehicles made a lot of news at this month’s International CES in Las Vegas and the big auto show in Detroit. The Nissan LEAF and General Motor Chevy Volt have sold more than any other electrified vehicles, but Ford and others are working to narrow the gap. Better and better technology is used to improve the gas mileage. New cars and trucks sold in the
United States in January will average 24.5 miles per gallon of gasoline, a record high, researchers at the University of Michigan said on Tuesday.The average fuel economy, as shown in window stickers placed on all new cars and trucks in the United States and easily seen at auto dealerships, is up 1 mile per gallon from a year earlier and 2 mpg from January 2011, the researchers said. The average fuel economy of new models on sale in January is 22 percent higher than when University of Michigan researchers began their monthly study in October 2007. Surveys show that 60 percent of the vehicles on the road have tires that are underinflated by at least 30 percent. That’s at least 9 psi below the manufacturer’s recommended pressure. People  might also consider a few useful tips to get a better gas mileage like Keeping Your Tires at the Right Pressure or Change Spark Plugs Before They’re Due. These will definitely be useful for any driver in the world. Speed Kills Your Gas Mileage and Your Wallet, it is true because it also take people’s lives away. So why not use the brand new cars and combine them with such tips to save money, lives and improve the life experience in total?

Sources used:

1) The motley fool                                                      http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/01/31/how-technology-is-boosting-hybrids-gas-mileage.aspx

2) Chicago tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-autosfuell1n0b5f27-20130205,0,7658300.story

3) Lifehacker.com                                                                            http://lifehacker.com/5979549/get-better-gas-mileage-and-fuel-economy-with-these-diy-car-care-tips