On March 11, 2011 the Japanese people were struck with a disaster that only added more suffering after being slammed with a 9.0 magnitude earthquake: a nuclear meltdown. Many were fearful that the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant would be worse than Chernobyl, and for some those fears were validated. This post will talk about the meltdown and some new nuclear strategies.

On March 11, 2011 Japan was struck with the Tohku earthquake. The 9.0 quake shook Japan for six minutes, and birthed a tsunami. The tsunami’s massive waves reached the shores of Fukushima, a city on the eastern coast of Japan. Fukashima is home to the Fukashima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a 370-acre facility responsible for supplying electricity to thousands of Japanese homes and businesses. Earlier that year a government inspection of the plant found that the plant was not properly equipped to deal with a tsunami, but the company in charge of the plant claims that they were amidst fixing the problem when the earthquake and tsunami hit. The tsunami waves were no match for the seawall surrounding the plant as they towered to two times the height of the wall. The earthquake caused the power plant to cut their power as a safety percussion, which would prompt a cooling system to help the nuclear core drop in temperature. With the water flooding in from the tsunami that cooling process was next to impossible. The ongoing nuclear situation prompted the government to evacuate the surrounding area of the plant.

Graphic showing the severity of the quake

Workers who remained at the plant after the tsunami struck were desperately attempting to restore power to the control room. To do so, many of them hooked up their car batteries to restore the power, which turned out to be a successful effort. With power restored they could now see the levels within the reactor core and the results were startling. The pressure within the reactor was such that cooling the core with water would be impossible, and it was leaking radioactive steam and could explode at any moment leaving parts of Japan inhabitable for decades. The goal then became to vent the reactor, but this was no easy task without electricity. They would have to go in and open the vents manually, a very labor-intensive process. Crews of only a few people took 17 minute shifts attempting to relive the building pressure in the core despite releasing a great deal of radioactive gas.

Soon the Japanese army came in to try and drop some water on the nuclear fuel that had been leaked after a hydrogen explosion in the roof of reactor 1. As soon as the unit left their Jeeps, one of the reactors exploded and dispersed radioactive material in the surrounding area.

Explosion of one of the nuclear reactors.

Since the 2011 meltdown Japan has attempted to change their energy strategies. In November of 2013 they opened a 70-megawatt Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar Plant that will produce enough energy for 22,00 homes. They plan to boost that wattage up to 19-gigawatts by 2016. Through the creation of this solar project it is clear that Japan is attempting to steer away from their dependency on nuclear power, a source of energy that was greatly favored before the disaster. According to the European Union website, “The Japanese Government is also currently updating the country’s energy policy and is expected to present a new, ‘innovative strategy for energy and environment’”. This shift away from nuclear energy is a good sign for the environment and public health. Avoiding these kinds of situations in the future is paramount to ensuring a cleaner environment.

References

            http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/japans-nuclear-meltdown/

http://www.ibtimes.com/two-years-after-fukushima-japan-opens-biggest-solar-power-plant-reaching-national-milestone-1455572

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

In a world that has become increasingly polluted over the past 4 decades, something must be done to plug the proverbial leak. There are many ways that we can slow the force of global warming, but one thing that has been on the rise is the use of geothermal energy to create heat and electricity. A leading country in doing this is the small Nordic island country of Iceland.

Geothermal energy is the process of extracting heat from the earth and converting that heat into energy, which can be used as a source of electricity and heat. Due to recent technological advancements, more than 8.900 megawatts of large utility-scale can produce enough energy to give to 12 million US households, all without emissions and at a cheaper cost than other ways of getting electricity. But the US has more capability to produce geothermal energy than any other country (3,000 megawats in eight states), mostly coming from California. Geothermal energy is created when Earthquakes create magma movement and break up rocks below the Earth’s surface. This allows hot water to circulate and rise to the Earth’s surface and the heat from that water is used to generate energy.

Iceland is located roughly 1,073 miles north west of England in the Norwegian Sea. Since Iceland is a very volcanic country, with active volcanoes on the island, much energy can be derived from the Earth’s inner core. Today, Iceland generates 25% of its electricity from geothermal power facilities, and 87% of the country’s heat. Essentially, the way that Iceland uses the Geothermal heat is by creating steam power. But, since the high amount of volcanic activity in Iceland creates hot springs, there is no need for a power plant to create the steam, because it already exists from the hot springs. These hot springs can contain water that is naturally heated to around 150 degrees Celsius. But this high amount of geothermal energy does not come with a price. The large amount of volcanic activity on Iceland means that ground is not exactly stable. The tectonic plates can have a tendency to move, and therefore create earthquakes on the Earth’s surface.

Icelandic hot spring suitable for swimming

Since the increased research on the front of geothermal power, Iceland has been thrust into a leading role in the usage of geothermal energy. Iceland has embarked on a project called The Iceland Deep Drilling Project. This project is being worked on by Iceland’s leading power companies and with the Icelandic government to “determine if utilizing supercritical geothermal fluids would improve the economics of power productions from geothermal fields”. They plan to drill deep down into those supercritical zones in order to see if they can further increase their energy generation. I believe that Iceland is certainly on to something with geothermal energy. With the US having a strong capability to do much of the same stuff, I believe that it would be worth the effort to get the wheels moving for the sake of the environment.

Diagram of IDDP

References

http://www.nea.is/geothermal/the-iceland-deep-drilling-project/

http://www.newstatesman.com/future-proof/2014/01/icelandic-scientists-tap-molten-magma-record-geothermal-energy-production

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/how-geothermal-energy-works.html

http://waterfire.fas.is/GeothermalEnergy/GeothermalEnergy.php

In the world today, there are many different types of engines that we use to power devices from our cell phones to our cars. The Stirling engine is just an example of one of those types of engines. Today, Stirling engines are not used in cars but only in highly specialized settings, such as submarines or some specific auxiliary power generators.

Robert Stirling invented the Stirling engine in 1816. Stirling was a Scottish minister and responsible for the first external combustion engine. Stirling engines use something called the The Stirling cycle to function.  In the Stirling cylce, all fumes are contained inside the engine and never leave and does not use any explosions to generate energy, this makes the system very quiet. The cycle also uses an external heat source to run, such as solar energy or even energy from decaying plants. In looking at the Stirling cycle, the key to the whole system is that there is a fixed amount of gas sealed inside of the engine at all times. The engine consists of two chambers. When that external heat is applied to the gas in one chamber, the pressure will change and a piston will be forced down which does work. The other chamber is a cooled chamber, and as the heated piston moves up the right one moves down. The heated gas makes its way into the cooled chamber and the gas is cooled and the pressure is lowered. In that cooled chamber, the gas begins to compress and generate heat and is removed by the cooling source of the chamber, a source such as ice. Then the cold piston moves up and the hot piston moves back down, making the gas heat back up and build pressure where the cycle repeats.

A stirling engine pushes hot gas into a cold chamber, depressing pistons.

A common application of the Stirling engine is in submarines and other underwater vessels; due to their lack of emissions and that they do expel a lot of noise, ideal for the highly pressurized and enclosed nature of a submarine. General Motors as well as other Swedish companies and researchers have been involved in advancements in Stirling engine uses.

The Peltier device is another form of engine without internal combustion. In 1834 the scientist Peltier discovered that if one were take a thermocouple (two dissimilar metals that are connected at a junction) and apply a voltage, there will be a difference in temperature between the junctions. This creates a small heat-pump or a thermo-electric cooler. The Peltier device’s main usage is to turn thermal energy into electrical energy. This process can be responsible for turning the heat from our exhaust systems into energy, something that would be very beneficial to the environment. Today, Peltier devices can be used to make mini fans, air conditioners and heaters.

An in-depth look at how a Peltier device works.

It is clear that these devices should be used more often in our world today considering the state of the environment. The fact that these devices do not expel much or any harmful gasses into our atmosphere would seem like a huge draw.
References

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/stirling-engine2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_the_Stirling_engine

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/peltier

This lab required us to use the Lego Mindstorm hardware and software in a way that we have not done before. We were given a small solar panel, the Lego device, a flashlight, and some color filters to do this lab with. The goal of the lab was to measure the levels of energy that the solar panel picks up from the flashlight from many different distances and using many different color filters on the panel. This lab illustrated to us very effectively exactly how much energy can be generated from photons.

Shining the light onto the panel.

In this lab we tested the solar panel’s readings with no light, from 3cm, 10 cm, 17cm, 24 cm, and 35 cm away. Additionally we tested the light readings with different color filters on top, namely blue, purple, orange, and yellow.

When we were going through the trials, we found that we got the highest average measurment when we held the flashlight 10 cm away from the solar panel. And average reading of 0.453605. We felt that this could be because when we would shine the light on the panel from a distance, we could aim the light directly down onto the panel. This is compared to when we held the flashlight right on top of the panel. When we held the light at a distance, we found that all of the light would be hitting the panel, instead of when it was right on top some of the light would be hitting the table under. Those are wasted photons not going into the panel. When we held it at a distance the light was concentrated onto the panel.

We also noticed that the power average was even stronger when we put the orange filter on the panel. The average spiked up to 0,471667. We feel that this is because the orange filter seems to be the one that has the least amount of light blockage. For example, one would not get much light diffusion if they were to wear orange sunglasses. So the light from the flashlight passed pretty easily through the filter and onto the panel.

Our data.

Overall, this lab was a lot of fun and had limited issues. The only problem that we had was, as usual, opening and working LabView. It seems that every time we use it something goes wrong. This lab was a lot of fun and I feel that I learned a lot about photovoltaic energy generation.