After completing the final experiment requirement, where we were to try another groups experiment regarding what we have learned all semester; I can confidently say that I will not look at some of the most common fruits the same. The experiment I indulged myself in required me to see the different levels of energy different fruits (more specifically their PH level) would produced and if they may be able to be used as a source of energy. The basic principle behind creating the voltage is a transfer of electron in a commonly known process of oxidation. These fruits included a Banana, Lime, Orange and lemon. Moreover, we also used different conductors such as a zinc nail, stainless steel nail a penny and graphite as the constant. You can see the process below in the photos taken.

While partaking in this experiment I found the most interesting aspect being that no matter how far away you moved the constant and the conductor the voltage level remanded the same. However, when you change the conductor from a zinc nail to a penny and so on, there is a change in voltage levels. I have also concluded below in the table the different voltage levels for each conductor and fruit with different PH level.

In conclusion, the reasoning behind this experiment was to see if you could reach adequate voltage levels to power a small device. For instance, a small flashlight requires roughly 1.5 volts. Unfortunately, the highest volts I was able to reach while doing this experiment was .84 volts. This was produced from the PH levels of the orange and a zinc-coated nail. Myself, and the presenting group came to the conclusion that if we used a larger conductor that we may be able to reach a higher voltage level. This is something I plan on doing in the near future. Overall, this experiment brought a lot of enlightenment to how the different PH levels bring different voltage levels.

Before reviewing the movie Pandora’s Promise I want to make it clear that yes, some Vermonters were in this movie and yes I did grow up in Vermont if you were not aware. Thus, putting me in very close proximity to the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant.  Now why is this of relevance? Its of relevance simply because I have been exposed to the negative side of how Nuclear Power works. Moreover, I did not know my exact feelings about nuclear power until I watched this movie….Here is why my tainted mind from tree-hugging, anti-nuclear power plant Vermonters have been changed.

Pandora’s Promise did a very good job at expressing both the pro and anti nuclear power perspectives, this was done successfully by introducing Steward Brand, Gwyneth Cravens and my personal Favorite Mark Lynas. These three people are everything from environmentalist, once violent anti nuclear demonstrators, and pronuclear power activist. During this movie they took Mark Lynas a once antinuclear power environmentalist around the world to different areas exposed to nuclear radiation.  Such places being Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi, and even an airplane 30+ thousand feet above the air the Atlantic ocean. What they found was astonishing to me….

During their travels to Chernobyl they found that the radiation levels were minimal, in fact, there was a small community that moved back to the contaminated area as they found that it was habitable and wanted “to be back home”. One male priest which they interviewed mentioned how he has been living there for 25 years illness free, and does not have any traces of radiation caused cancer in his body. While this is hard to believe, they took tests of background levels of radiation on a airplane while traveling to NYC; the levels read 2.20 and when landed in NYC they had readings of 0.13. Moreover, when they traveled to New Hampshire (I believe Mount Washington) they found levels of 0.30 and in Guarapari Brazil they found their local beach to have an astonishing level of 30.81! This is far beyond the national public safety levels, and there have been no deaths from this beach due to radiation…which leaves anyone questioning the effects of radiation.

While this movie left me very intrigued on the negative word of mouth nuclear power has gotten, greatly due to the creation of weapons of mass destruction with this technology. I found myself sucked into the positive aspects of nuclear power that people are not willing to accept. For instance, France has 80% of their power from nuclear reactors and they’re actually greener than Germany and Denmark, thus showing that nuclear power will and does positively impact and electrical grid. Not to mention that every year fossil fuels pollute the air enough to cause 3 million deaths in the 12-month span.

In conclusion, I found myself going from a feeling of neutral nuclear power, to pronuclear power due to the long-term benefits, the positive effect on the environments and the availability of recycling used nuclear waist to create more nuclear power. However, while the negative effects of nuclear are still in the back of my head, I feel the cost benefit analysis of nuclear power and the possible risks is enough to keep nuclear power active and growing.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear disaster was one that literally shook the whole world — Not only was it the biggest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, but it was also the only other event to measure level 7 on the nuclear event scale. While this nuclear event was caused by a large scale earth quake followed by a tsunami it has also left us still feeling the effects of this event, two years later. More then 16,000 people died during this event, and as many as “300,000 people were forced to evacuate or voluntarily left their homes.” (1) Moreover, with this event-taking place it has lead japan to think about new and safer ways of creating energy and has even left an impact on a global scale in the energy industry, and other industries such as the automobile industry.

This disaster resulted on such a large-scale that it forced the plant management team at Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to not only re-evaluate their disaster evacuation plans, but as Dale Klein (chair of the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee) states “it required something that is generally not considered very Japanese: asking for foreign help.” This marks a big step for the Japanize government in recognizing that they did not have the right precautions in place and they now see they do not have the proper amount of knowledge to prevent this problem in future events.

Japan currently has 2 out 50 nuclear reactors operating, and this leads to a large energy deficit, requiring the government to spend nearly $250 Billon per year on imported oil, gas and coal. (2) While this doesn’t show much hope for japan in the future it is actually interesting to know that japan has the third largest solar energy market in terms of installed capacity and is also projected to have the third largest geothermal energy resources. This is a sector that japan needs to exploit more and Goldman Saschs sees that they need to help incentive this already existing assets: they have recently stated that they will “invest as much as $487 Million in Japanese fuel cell, solar, wind and biomass efforts” showing that while this country may not have yet recovered fully from the second largest nuclear disaster they do have hope in creating self sustaining energy such as solar and fuel cells.

The Japanese government seems to have taken a lot away from this disaster, and in return they have followed Germanys footsteps by setting a target of reaching 25-35% of total energy being created by renewable methods by 2030. Japan has also started a global trend and has created a feed-in-tariff system, which is a method of purchasing electricity at a set price for a fixed period. (3) Thus showing the steps japan has taken to not only improve their energy strategies, but also how their market can positively effect the global market.

References:

 1) http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/03/20797895-water-6700-times-more-radioactive-than-legal-limit-spills-from-fukushima?lite

2) http://www.japantoday.com/category/opinions/view/japans-energy-challenges-2-years-on-from-fukushima

3) http://ajw.asahi.com/article/globe/economy/AJ201301270012

The Photovoltaic experiment fit well inside the syllabus as it allowed me to further my knowledge into how voltage is stored/created using Photovoltaic panels, along with the effects different distances and color filters would have on the overall voltage produced from using this panel. During this experiment we were required to use a small hand held flashlight, and a small solar panel. During this experiment we found that voltages changed depending on the distance in-between the light source and panel; the  least amount of voltage came from a distance of 16cm (0.17 volts) and the most voltage came from a distance of 0cm (0.33 volts). Understandably so, these findings did not shock me. However, when we added different color filters to this experiment (Red, Green, Purple) we found that these three colors did effect the voltage the solar panel would produce. For instance, the Purple filter allowed for highest voltage count while the green allowed for the least voltage accumulation. I feel the color differences could be positively introduced in color coating of Photovoltaic panels, for instance maybe one color would attract UV rays more on a cloudy day then a non-tinted panel (just a thought). I also feel that we need to invest more into solar farms high elevation mountain tops as you can see the difference in cm, imagine the benefits of hundreds of feet!

The topic of Hydrofracking is a rather interesting one to me, the first time I was exposed to the concept was when the movie Promise Land came out. After watching the movie I found myself quite shocked on the process and how it was negatively affecting everyone in the surrounding areas. Maybe I never heard about fracking becausue I was living in the northeast where clearly no one saw a need to hydrofrack, or maybe it was because heavily invested people were able to keep the process and the risks quite. Before I cover some of the potential risk; lets talk about what hydrofracking really is:

“fracking, is a technique in which typically water is mixed with sand and chemicals, and the mixture is injected at high pressure into a wellbore to create small fractures (typically less than 1mm), along which fluids such as gas, petroleum, uranium-bearing solution, and these fluids are then pumped back to the surface for disposal”  (1)

now that we understand how hydrofracking is done, it doesn’t seem that bad, does it? Well lets remember that this is a rather new method of getting once inaccessible hydrocarbons, and as Investor Environmental Health Network has mentioned in their webpage iehn.com “60%-80% of natural gas wells drilled in the next decade will require hydraulic fracturing.” To me that seems like a whole lot of companies are jumping on the bandwagon to increase their profit margins and reach these untapped resources. In my mind that’s a huge red flag right from the start, is hydrofracking really to good to be true, or do companies like Chevron see an unethical practice that hasn’t been exploited yet?

What does this mean for the average citizen who lives in the areas where these large companies are fracking? It means the use of surface ponds or pits to store all those chemicals that were pumped down into the 1mm hole, the largest problem being that the EPA has yet to develop proper protocols for how to dispose of these waist fluids, moreover, they’re leaving it up to local governments, states and tribes to have primary responsibility (2). Thus leading to a lot of uncertainty in what the following repercussions will be by having no solid laws in place regarding spills or contamination to punish these companies if something did happen.

While some people may not be able to fully understand the negative effects of fracking, I’d like to end this blog with a quote from the actor Dustin Noble from the movie Promise Land:

“Hi everybody. I’m here because my farm is gone. The land just turned brown and it died. Its happened to one of us. It can happen to all of us”

while this is out of a hollywood movie, it does show the current effects of fracking in these small farming communities. Within the next decade I would not only like to see the percentage of wells being drilled using hydrofracking decrease, but I’d also like to see the EPA start adapting harsh and restricting laws regarding this practice of reaching hydrocarbons.

An example of the extracting process being used to bring chemicals and water back to the surface

References:

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing

2) http://www.iehn.org/overview.naturalgashydraulicfracturing.php

I found the generator blog to be rather interesting. While I don’t know how much I was able to comprehend from the experiment, I was most surprised at how many volts of electricity I could create with such little force over a 30second period of time. This experiment brought me to become a little bit more curious with how a generator works and the power that large scale ones can create. While doing this research I found gas powered compact generators that were able to give off enough electricity for a full household. Blew my mind! Overall I enjoyed this experience, and look forward to more of them.

The energy sector is a rather interesting one and its finally getting its long overdue make over… below I explain what the energy grid is to me, and how it’s getting its new automated face lift.

This brings me to my evaluation of the energy grid as a young kid growing up in the country; I can always remember these big burly men trekking through our wooded back yard and large green fields checking on the power lines, cutting overgrown trees down and trimming large trees back from the power lines. Sometimes, less burly men would come in their nice pickup truck that I would always admire and these men would simply go up to the one big telephone pole in the middle of our green field and check that weird grey looking box on the pole. These men were the forefront of the power companies, and the only thing that I could attach to our electricity provider (Green Mountain Power). Which brings me to describe the U.S. energy grid and the unfortunate truth for these less burly men.

The unfortunate truth for these less burly men who would work on the power lines and still make an avg. $54,000 year salary is; they’re being automated by Smart Grid technology. What is the smart grid? The smart grid is best described as the American evolution of automating as much as possible, and saving as much money as possible while cutting manual labor from the workforce. The government website Smartgrid.gov explains that:

“In 2008, 31% of electrical substations had some sort of automation and that number was expected to grow to 40% in 2010” (1)

while this 31% of automation is on the provider end, the consumer end is expected to jump from a “small percent of 4.7% or about 6.7 million meters to surge to 36% (growing by 52 million) bringing smart meters to more than 40% of the nations electric customers”. (1) These automated meters are not only cutting out one job position but they will help “develop critical performance and proof-of-concept data, and help build the business case for cost-effective smart grid technologies”. (2) While we may loose a manual job, I personally feel this automated technology will give us valuable information that would not normally be collected in a fashionable and timely manner.

CEO David Crane of NRG Energy states that the U.S. electrical grid is “the largest machine in the world complied of 3,200 utilities, and the major power companies sell $400 Billion dollars worth of energy each year” (4) and it is finally getting its long overdue make over by automation of the grid and creating the “Smart Grid”. The U.S. energy grid is mostly delivered from burning fossil fuels such as gas and coal. (see below for two maps: 1^st  of gas burning power stations and 2^nd coal burning power stations, red signifies the size and placement of all power plants) (3)

Its an unpleasant reality that the U.S. power grid:

 “is a model that hasn’t been changed much since Thomas Edison invented the light bulb” (4)

and its about time parts of the worlds largest machine be automated and allow more cost effective methods to be implemented, not to mention the benefits of real time updates and proof-of-concept data.

References: 

1: http://www.smartgrid.gov/federal_initiatives/featured_initiatives/biennial-report-tracks-smart-grid

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

3: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997398

4: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-22/homegrown-green-energy-is-making-power-utilities-irrelevant

Germany’s green energy policy otherwise known as “energiewende” encourages countries to move away from fossil fuels and to use more renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and water. Germany has almost completely moved away from producing nuclear power. Germany is the leading country on how to produce green energy and they’ve also set the bar on investing in their green energy technologies.

While Germany is leading by example, it comes with a price to their citizens, and is increasing their electricity bill to the point where:

“A three-person German household paid on average 40.60 Euros ($52.98) a month for electricity in 2000; it is now 75.08 Euros ($97.98),

an increase of about 85 percent.” (IER, 2012)

While many citizens are accepting of this increase of price due to the benefits of producing green energy the price could exceed many households cost of living. While the raising prices of electricity are just one example of what can affect the citizens, there are also bigger suppliers and manufactures that are being affected.

Conenergy and Gehrlicher Solar are two of the countries biggest solar companies and Walter Russell points out how they’ve “recently filled for insolvency, and Bosch has also decided to leave the solar market”. I find this to be very interesting as in years past these companies were making great strides in their solar fields. I believe this decline is a result of other countries not following ship with Germanys aggressive approach to green energy. Walter Russell also mentions in his Blog The American Interest that Germany is “being beat out by china and cheaper markets on making their products, however, they did start the revolution”. While they did start the revolution, they also do not want to be the ones to end it. Global markets must be taken into account, and they must be exploited as a market that could encourage other countries to follow Germanys footsteps as they’re able to reduce the cost of production by great amounts.

While Germany has increased all their baseline numbers of growth by more than 500% and with wind capacity they’ve grown by more than 2000%, and their solar photovoltaic installations by more than 15000% they still have growing to do in order to reach their goal of having 9% of their electricity come from these forms of green energy. However, these baselines were set in 1990. Paul Runci of Global Change makes a strong point regarding the challenges:

“the German government to sustain the current rate of renewables deployment, considering several factors: resistance to incentives from domestic industry lobbies and community advocacy groups, tensions within the coalition government over subsidies for renewable energy, availability of cheap energy imports” (Runci 2005) 

While we have distinguished the problems and concerns the citizens and government have in the upcoming years with limiting the use of fossil fuels we are lead to the question; should house holds pay less, should industries pay more and can it be done cheaper to attract other countries into this green movement. Hopes that Germanys example of successful job creation and lowering of fossil fuel admissions will encourage countries such as America to make this big step to a healthier and more sustainable environment.