The need for fuel has always been strong, and still continues to be so to this day.  So ways to to get to and transport the fuel would follow as well. The Keystone pipeline is just the proposed method to transport the fuel, but regardless it is still part of the bigger picture of the debate going on.

Mainly, the two sides are that the Keystone pipeline would mean harm to the environment and that it wouldn’t be an effective source of energy, while the other side says that it would be economically beneficial and safe.

For the side against Keystone, they bring up some valid points that you’d actively need to clear away things to get to the resource, which would effectively mean tearing up the land and changing it drastically. All of this would be done to get at a resource that apparently causes large amounts of pollution and does not make up for the “energy” spent to get to it in the first place. This also brings into question, why do we continue to go for these resources instead of trying to go toward cleaner energy. There is also the fact that not only will the land be severely affected, but so will people, animals, and plant life. The Keystone pipeline would take up a vast amount of land, which may displace a large number of those mentioned.

As for the side against Keystone, yes, the economy is important. The project would provide jobs, and in turn money for those around it, but does this necessarily make up for the cons and the risk involved? The fact that the designers say that it’s perfectly safe, and that there would be no chance of a leak is dubious to say the least. It’s almost like what they said about the “unsinkable” Titanic, and everyone knows how that turned out. The fact is, there is always a chance for something to fail, so the possibility shouldn’t be ruled out.

Overall, the Keystone Pipeline does present some opportunities and benefits, but they don’t seem to make up for the cons and risks that may occur.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/jane-kleeb-vs-the-keystone-pipeline.html

http://www.nrdc.org/energy/keystone-pipeline/

http://www.foe.org/projects/climate-and-energy/tar-sands/keystone-xl-pipeline

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/17/the-keystone-xl-fight-is-highly-partisan-unless-you-live-near-the-proposed-pipeline-route/

The trip the the Museum of Science was quite enlightening, especially with certain exhibits and displays.

For this display, it presented an issue that most households may face. That fact that households would lose via radiation through windows. The loss of heat equates to loss of energy, since it would require more energy to generate heat to replace the ones lost. At this image shows, one side has plain glass, while the other is the special E Glass, which reflects back more heat than the plain glass.

This reflection of heat is important in that it goes back into the room rather than out. This means that less heat is lost, and more energy is saved, which is the most important thing.

In regards to this display, I would rate these bulbs on a scale of 1-10. 1 being the best, and 10 being the worst. LED would be 1, since it requires less turns of the wheel, at a slow pace. CFL comes second at 4, requiring a couple more turns at a slightly faster pace. Finally, the incandescent comes in a a whooping 15, yes, 15. I lost count at how many turns done, and my arm hurt after I had only got a moderate glow from the bulb. This tells me that it uses a ton of energy to even light up.

When considering my group experiment dealing with light bulbs, this gets relatively important in that we’re using so much energy without really realizing it. While the heat generated by the bulbs clues us in, the display showed just how big an impact was made.

Energy is very important, as shown by the previous images. It helps to generate heat and light, but it is not infinite. This is what makes electricity generation just as important, since supply needs to be made to meet up with demand. What helps with the generation is the kind of structure that is being used. As with conservation of energy, what’s used greatly helps.

In the three images dealing with wind turbines, there are 5 in total, with the energy generated being shown by 2 of them. As it can plainly be seen, the former wind turbine generates far more electricity  than the latter.

When you consider everything discussed about above, planning and structuring an experiment can depend solely what it’s made of. Any knowledge can be used to further improve it. This can range from what type of materials are used, or how the experiment is done.

Trading spouses was a show that I used to watch, and enjoyed quite well when it first came out. I was young, and didn’t care much about any particulars, as long as it’s interesting. Now, after I’ve watched the episode, I cringe (and also laugh at the notion that this actually happened.

Why do I cringe, well some of the things are presented in a way that just makes it seem too “out there”. To outsiders, it really may be strange to them, unless you have some background information. Namely, I am familiar with some Jewish practices, so the fact that they don’t use electricity on one day, or that they separate everything dealing with food, does not surprise me. As a film studies major, I realized that editing made something that I was familiar with suddenly become over the top.

The same somewhat happened with the other family’s practices. While their religious practices don’t get much focus as the Jewish practices, the times anything related to it seem heavily forced. The hunting scene also seemed to be a bit much, but upon reading some guidelines regarding raccoon hunting, they were within them. It’s just that the scene was edited in a way that made it seem terrible. One such note was that the cries of the raccoon was clear and loud, almost as if they specifically sought out the sound itself.

Sound, as well as how scenes are cut together makes a different story depends on what music or sound effects are used, and also the order of where the cuts are placed. Dramatic or tense music will paint the scene to play out that way.

Aside from the way things were presented through editing, one thing really stood out through it all. I find it very coincidental that the Rabbi happened to visit right when there was a party going on.

Overall, mostly the things that seemed fake were that visiting Rabbi, and general impression being made. While there might have been more fabricated things, as a third party, I can’t really say much else.

Demand Response – Programs that allow consumers to be rewarded for using less energy during times when energy is in high demand.

These kinds of programs are very useful and important to high energy use areas. The main reason being is that energy is not infinite, and also cannot be stored in large quantities. This means that during periods of high use for energy, the supply cannot meet the demand. It also means that even if excess energy is made in times where energy use is low, it cannot be stored away for future use.

Of course not many people would go out of their way to do something for nothing, thus the reward is an incentive for them to do so. The reward being  money, or something of monetary value.

In total, this is a voluntary based program that offers a reward for participating, and is more efficient in the long run, both money and time wise. This comes from the fact that, yes, more power plants can be built to help contribute to the supply, but that in itself requires several things. Those things being places to put the power plants, money to get the workers and building materials, and then time to build them. This is in contrast with just using what already exists, and a good number of people participating in the program.

While more energy isn’t being made during this process, it simply means that the unused energy will be directed elsewhere. That is a better outcome than everyone using a lot of energy when there is less than the demand, resulting in a black out, or something equally worse. Really, the only “con” than can be taken from this is that you may not get AC during heatwaves, or something.

Overall, giving up some energy use during the specific periods of high demand is a lesser sacrifice, when compared to the potential to lose it all, or having to pitch in money, time, and resources to get more.

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http://demandresponse.nrg.com/demand-response

http://www.enernoc.com/our-resources/term-pages/what-is-demand-response

http://www.pge.com/en/mybusiness/save/energymanagement/whatisdr/index.page

Trying to come up with an experiment idea shouldn’t be too hard, and yet it was. While there are so many things to test out and experiment with, trying to find an idea within a set category, and then figuring out how to implement an experiment based on it was problematic. Mainly the fact that “oh, we have an idea…how do we test it” was the general issue that was had. There was also the fact that when we did come across an idea, and sort of figured out how to try it out, the concept had already been taken.

This lead to more agonizing and scrambling to try to find something to do. I use these terms very loosely. Eventually, we did come to a suitable experiment to do. This was after we stayed certain to the theme of “sustainability”, and then focused on solar energy. A basic Google search helped to finished things off. This experiment was edited to fit the materials that were on hand, and also to possibly save time in the long run.

http://www.education.com/science-fair/article/heat-produced-from-light-bulbs/

We went through several edits before coming to one that was reasonable. These changes included omitting materials listed on the website, changing the amount of certain materials, and  changing the time period where the light would hit the thermometer, or in this case a temperature probe.

On the site, it says wait 5 minutes, we changed it to 1 minute because we felt it was too long of a wait. We soon realized that this was too short of a time frame, and increased the time to 2 minutes. The same problem was encountered once again, and thus we changed it back to 5 minutes, where the temperature did steadily rise. This was all tested with the 13 W bulb, which we knew did produce heat because an attempt was made to unscrew it from the lamp right after it was turned off. The bulb was hot and thus does produce some heat.

An obvious thing to have considered was that things take time to heat up, even when the heat source is just inches away from the probe. Overall, most the time was spent working out all the kinks, from changing aspects of the procedure, to trying to work out the LabView program that was used to record all the data.

In the end, we did get some things from this cluster of confusion. Namely that, everything works, and that even the lowest wattage bulb produces heat. Whether more wattage means more heat is left to be figured out when the entirety of the experiment is done.

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(A copy of the lab worksheet is featured below)

Experiment: What type of bulb and wattage produces the most heat?

Purpose: This experiment conveys the importance of efficiency in relation to sustainability. In order to limit the impact of energy use on the environment, it is important to make educated choices about what products you use, and how you use them. This experiment will show us what type of bulb and what wattage produces the most heat, and this may show which bulb is more efficient to use.

Materials:
A lamp that can use various light bulbs, and where it’s light can be directed in one direction.
3 Light bulbs with different Wattage (150W, 43W, 13W)
3 Thermometers (Temperature probes)
Measuring tape or ruler
Stopwatch (or anything that can be used as a timer)
LabView program that records temperature.

Procedure:
1. Clip lamp on edge of table.

2. Screw in one of the light bulbs. Be sure that the lamps is unplugged and turned off. Also note what type of light bulb you are screwing in.

3. Lay down a 15 inch ruler, from base of clamp lamp. (1 being near clamp)
4.  Put thermometer tip at the 6 inch mark. (see picture)

5. Bend lamp to be 3 inches over the thermometer.
6. Turn the lamp on and start the stopwatch as soon as the light turns on.

7. Once 5 minutes have passed, take note of the temperature on the thermometer.

8. Turn the lamp off, and let the bulb cool a little before unscrewing it.

9. Switch to another thermometer before continuing on with the experiment.

10. Repeat steps 2-9 until all the remaining light bulbs have been tested.

N.B

– Let the light bulbs cool down so that you don’t burn yourself

– Make sure that the distance between the bulb and the thermometer remains the same for each test.

– Make sure the lamps is unplugged and turned off when switching bulbs. You don’t want to blind yourself.

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The lab sheet itself may be subject to change after this post.