An Economic Way to Stay Cool

When first trying to figure out what demand response was, my first thoughts were something that had to do with the economy, kind of like ‘demand-pull’ and ‘cost-push’ inflation.  They sounds a lot like each other, but demand response has to do with electricity, not inflation.  Reading about it and learning what it is though, it seems like it works in the same ways those theories do, “when demand is high and supply is short, power interruptions can sometimes be the result” (“What is Demand Response”).  This means there is a need for a way to reduce supply when there is no demand, and heighten supply when there is high demand.  This solution is Demand Response.

Demand response was created for the purpose of lessening the use of energy when it is not needed and using it more when it is needed.  When we don’t need to use electricity for washing and drying, the electric company shuts the line to it off, saving electricity and allowing for it to be used somewhere else (if in an emergency) or nowhere at all (if energy use has skyrocketed) (DemandSMART).  To get a good understanding and visual of the concept, go here http://www.enernoc.com/solutions/demand-response.php.  It is a demonstration of what the company EnerNOC does for it members specifically, but at the same time shows what demand response is.

This program allows for less electricity to be used, saving energy and money at the same time.  It was a win-win situation for environmentalists/scientists and economists.  It is one way to help cope with the already seen effects of global-warming and a simple and easy way to try and prevent more of it from occurring, albeit in a fairly small portion.  This program is mostly needed and is mostly used in times of heat waves and during the summer.  It allows for the companies to cut off electricity to unnecessary things automatically (a system is installed for automatic control) such as washers, and move that to appliances such as Air Conditioners.

During emergency events such as heat waves, the demand for electricity obviously heightens, and the response must be increased as well.  For example, this past summer we experienced some very hot days where we all wanted our air conditioners to be blasting.  This, however, means that more electricity needs to be used, and companies may not be able to keep up with this need on top of the regular need.  Demand response helped to mitigate it and allow for all the air conditioners to keep working and help people cope with the heat.  The companies were able to do this by lowering lighting, shutting down pumps, and etc. (Behr).  The program is mostly used in commercial buildings by companies, with growth in the residential sector.  To help with energy consumption it is definitely a good idea to install the system that allows for demand response in your household.  Much like solar panals, this program eventually saves you, as a consumer, money, and sometimes even pays you back for trying the new idea.

As we all know already, population is growing rapidly, and so is the need for energy.  However, energy and resources can not keep with this rapid growth.  Scientists and economists alike hope that this program will be a way to help cope with the rapid growth  in the future.

References

Behr, Peter. “Demand Response Helped Some Regions Conserve Electricity During Heat Wave.”  New York Times. 27 July 2011. Web. 30 Jan 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/07/27/27climatewire-demand-response-helped-some-regions-conserve-89838.html?pagewanted=all

“DemandSMART.” EnerNOC, Inc. 2012 Web. 30 Jan. 2012. < http://www.enernoc.com/solutions/demand-response.php >

“What is Demand Response?” Pacific Gas and Electric Company. 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/energysavingsrebates/demandresponse/whatisdemandresponse/>

Engineering for Dummies..Not Really

While in high school, I was apart of the FIRST robotics team at my high school.  The funny thing though is that I am the worst at anything science or math related.  I did more of the business side, marketing, and etc, with some building, but no design or actual engineering.  However, during those years I was also a mentor of the 5th and 6th graders for the younger robotics program, FIRST Lego League.  This program used NXT robots that were to be programmed by the students to do certain tasks on a board with certain structures.  For example, they had to build and then program the robot so that it had an arm to pick up a lego truck and move it somewhere else on the board.  All tasks had to be done in certain constrained time period.  Coming into class and realizing that we would be using the NXT robots, I was rather excited because I had done this before.

I was sorely mistaken though, our robot was not going to turn out like the 6th grader’s one above, even though we are all in our 20s and they’re all 12.  It has been over 3 years since mentoring or doing anything engineering related, and I certainly forgot most of what I learned.  Reading the instructions and listening to what we have to do, I’m thinking “oh this will get done so fast”, but I was wrong.  The program, LabView had changed since the last time I had used it and had gotten far more complicated than I remember.

After figuring out where to find everything though, it got much much easier to use.  We finally put all the little lego pieces on and made car-type contraption, after dropping and losing them quite a few times.  First we just kept going it as fast as we could and seeing it lurch and had a good time with that.  Then we finally got to our actual assignment of having it go in a circle.  That was a difficult one because we were trying to figure it out before anyone told us what to do.  I can say that we had some trouble with it since we had no idea that to get it to go in a circle it needed to have two different speeds for the wheels.  After getting that figured out, we made one wheel a power of 75 and the other 25 by changing the specific ports on the program, we got it to go in a circle, only to have to go back to a different assignment of getting it to go straight.  This was what we were supposed to do the whole time apparently…

We got the robot to lurch quickly and slowly and had to measure the distance on the actual table and what the computer calculated it would be to find the percentage error.  We found the circumference of the wheel to be .172m, which we plugged into the computer while running the computer for one second.  This allowed for LabView to determine the distance, .174m.  We then ran it again and measured the distance on the actual table, which was .175m.  The figure out the percent error, we used the equation:

With our information, the equation was: .175m – .174m / (.349m/2)

.001m / .1745m  = .0057

This showed that the percent error for the distance was .57%, not that bad in my opinion because there will always be some sort of error when measuring by hand.

Fukushima Daiichi

It has been almost a year since Japan was thrown “into the most severe crisis since World War II” (“Japan Quake”).  In early March of 2011, Japan had a severe earthquake, reaching a magnitude of 9.0.  This earthquake, the largest in Japan’s history, then caused tsunami waves to rise and engulf many of the areas surrounding Tōhoku and Miyako.  The earthquake also caused a set of nuclear meltdowns and the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl incident in 1986.

When the earthquake and tsunami hit, many of the reactors shut down automatically, while others did not because of a failure of the cooling system (Kinver).  The reactor can be shut down and nuclear fission can be stopped; however, there is still an abundance of heat, which is what the cooling system is needed for.  In Fukushima, reactor 1’s cooling system failed to operate, and the back up generators were not working either.  Because of the lack of back up generators, the cooling of the reactor could not occur, creating potential for a nuclear meltdown (Kinver).

At first, Japan thought that everything would be fine and there was no cause for concern because they had been pumping water into the reactors and trying to keep them cool and trying to prevent an actual meltdown.  “A meltdown occurs when nuclear fuel rods cannot be cooled, thus melting the reactor core and causing a release of radioactivity” (“Six Days Later”).  Japanese officials and analystsfelt there was no reason to worry because even if there was a meltdown, no radioactive material should escape because the plants were built specifically to prevent that from occurring. This changed though when the first reactor went into meltdown and caused an explosion on March 12th (Black).  This explosion caused a minor leak of radioactivity (within the legal limits) in the local area of Fukushima, which made the government evacuate only the local areas.  Two days later, another explosion occurred, this one at reactor 3.  It has been observed that both explosions occurred because of a hydrogen build-up, in addition to their cooling systems failing (“Japan Quake”).  During this time, officials mentioned that the cooling system at reactor 2 was also failing, causing concern for a third explosion.  This third explosion occurred on March 15th, causing the radiation level to exceed the legal limits and causing an evacuation of much of the surrounding areas.  The radiation levels were high enough to get into water plants and cause concerns for infants.  The government could not control the spread of it, causing problems for the rest of Japan.  Food and water was contaminated throughout the country, and the area had been evacuated for months.  Over the year, the radiation levels lowered, but there was still some in the air in September.  We obviously, and thankfully, can not compare this to the disaster in Chernobyl, where people still can not live in the area and radiation caused unbelievable amounts of illnesses and deaths.

It was not until December of 2011 that the Prime Minister could say that the reactors and plants were stable and people could begin to come back to the area.  This was only possible with what we now know as the “Fukushima 50”, who stayed back to help control the disaster and preventing and uncontrolable meltdown of Chernobyl proportions.  The question now is whether many of these people want to come back to this area, in case anything triggers the reactors to start up (Tabuchi).  As of right now, only 8 of the 54 reactors in Japan are operating becauseof the communities fears of more disasters.

The disaster has caused international debate among officials, analysts, and scientists on the safety of nuclear power.  Some think that nuclear power’s benefits outweigh the dangers, while others, like many in Japan, feel that it is not worth it and that we should do more with renewable energy instead.

Refrences

Black, Richard. “Struggle to Stabalise Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Plant.” BBC.co. 13 March 2011. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12726628>

Kinver, Mark. “Japan Earthquake Triggers Nuclear Shutdown.” BBC.co. 11 March 2011. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12711707 >

“Japan quake: Fresh explosion at Fukushima nuclear plant.” BBC.co. 14 March 2011. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12729138 >

“Six days later, Japanese still confronting magnitude of quake crisis.” CNN.com. 16 March 2011. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. <http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-16/world/japan.disaster_1_nuclear-plant-reactors-nuclear-crisis/2?_s=PM:WORLD>

Tabuchi, Hiroko. “Japan’s Prime Minister Declares Fukushima Plant Stable.” New York Times. 16 December 2011. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. < http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/world/asia/japans-prime-minister-declares-fukushima-plant-stable.html >

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