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.

Solar energy has been making its way into our collective minds as a viable way to generate electricity and power. Today, the general interest in solar power has changed to more of a craze, with more and more people coming up with ways to incorporate photovoltaic panels into their home and businesses. Solar panels and photovoltaic energy is a more efficient and environmentally friendly way of generating energy, and many people around the world are coming up with interesting and innovative ways to generate solar energy.

The first thing that I came across in my research was a way to use solar energy without solar panels. I first saw a picture of a kitchen in someone’s house. This was a regular looking kitchen, but in the corner and in front of the counter there were floor-to-ceiling clear tubes. Inside the clear tubes was a large amount of water. These are called passive heat storage tubes. The idea is for the tubes to be placed in areas of someone’s home or business that get a lot of sunlight in through the windows. The water in the tubes then heats up and radiates that heat out and into the room. It sort of works like an old-school radiator, but on a much larger scale and the water stays stagnant inside of the tube. Of course, these tubes cannot power a building with electricity, but they do provide heat within a single room. The main purpose is for the tubes to be in someone’s home and the heat that they radiate would help cut down on heating oil and other heating costs. However, there are problems with passive head storage tubes. For starters, one could not depend entirely upon these tubes to give them adequate heat, especially in desperately cold climates. They serve as a good supplementary source of heat, but certainly not a primary. Additionally, the tubes are not too cosmetically appealing. One website says that they can be used as “room dividers or attractive accents” but I’m not buying it. They look more like a storage device for someone’s human clone projects than a way to heat a room.

Passive heat storage tubes… charming.

Around the world people spend a great deal of their time and money on sporting events. Sporting arenas require massive amounts of energy to power lights, scoreboards, television equipment and countless other facets to make their events fun. Most arenas still rely on power from power plants to power their arenas but arenas such as Fenway Park, AT&T Park, and Lincoln Financial Field use some solar power to power their stadiums. But one stadium uses 100% solar power as their energy source: The National Stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The stadium is a spherical shape and uses 8,844 solar panels as its roof. It is estimated that the stadium generates 1.14 million Kilowatt-hours of energy a year, which is enough to power 80% of its surrounding neighborhood. This project is incredibly innovative because it takes something that requires a high level of energy to function and turns in into all renewable energy.

The National Stadium. Solar panels visible on roof

A new species of trees has been sprouting up in Serbia. But these trees don’t produce fruit or lumber. Instead, they produce electricity. They’re called Strawberry Trees and they are found in urban centers in Serbia. Strawberry Trees are public cell phone chargers and Wi-Fi stations that are completely run off of solar power. I find that these Strawberry Trees incorporate renewable energy in a way that touches everyone today, through cell phones. Everyone has one, they all need to be charged, so why not use a renewable resource to keep them running? There are currently only 3 Strawberry Trees in Serbia, but more installations are planned. To add to the convenience of the Tree, it stores the solar energy gathered during sunny days so that users can still charge their phones in cloudy weather and at night.

A man sits under a Strawberry Tree in Serbia. Many cell phone chargers visible behind him

Innovations in the industry of solar power seem to be sprouting up all around the world. However, I feel that the US is lacking in their innovations. I find these international innovations very interesting and I will continue to research them.

References

http://solarenergy.net/News/2010040902-7-ways-to-use-solar-energy-around-the-house/

http://mashable.com/2012/01/04/innovative-solar-energy-tech/

http://www.archdaily.com/22520/taiwan-solar-powered-stadium-toyo-ito/

http://www.archdaily.com/22520/taiwan-solar-powered-stadium-toyo-ito/

In this lab we were charged with the duty of running a generator powered off of our own bodily energy. For this lab we used the Lego Mindstorm technology and software to power and capture our results. We were given a flashlight looking device that housed the generator, a magnet that passes through coils and the change in current creates power, and we needed to shake the device to move the magnet and create the energy. This lab illustrated to me the way in which a generator works, and how many times that the magnet must pass through the coils in order to generate a good amount of power.  We did six trials and used varied amounts of shakes in each trial, then we took that data and sumsquared it. Here is our data and results:

data from lab. Shakes vs. Sumsquared

For our first test we did a trial without shaking the generator at all. What I found to be interesting is that the generator was still able to generate some power, albeit a very low amount. I am not entirely sure why this is, but I suspect that it is because there is some pent up energy left within the coil from the last run or while the magnet was running through the coils before we started the trial.

Something that I find interesting as well is the fact that every trial that we did produced more energy than the last, despite the fact that we did not increase the number of shakes that we did each time, sometimes we did less shakes. This, similar to why not shaking the device at all yielded some energy gain, I feel is because there was some pent up energy left in the generator from the previous trials.

graph showing number of shakes on the X axis and the sumsquared on the Y axis.

A challenge that we encountered in the process of doing this lab was in collecting the data. I found it incredibly hard to count the number of times that I shook the device, especially when we were attempting to maximize the shaking. Because of that, some of ‘the number of shakes’ might be estimations of how many times the device was shaken. This perhaps could have hindered the data in some way. However this lab was a lot of fun and did a very good job of helping us understand exactly how a generator works.

This lab involved using the Lego Mindstorm in a new and innovative way. For this lab only the wheel portion of the car was used. The actual wheel was tied to a string that was fed through a pulley system and attached to a few weights on the other side. We had to use one force three times and change the amount of weight on the other side of the pulley for each trial. Then we had to change the amount of force for the next three trials and keep the weight constant. For each trial we had to calculate the acceleration. For the first trial set we used the force of 75 Newtons and we changed the mass to .2Kg, .1 Kg, and .16 Kg. For the second set of trials we used the forces of 50 Newtons, 100 Newtons, and 150 Newtons and kept the weight constant at .2Kg. Here are our results for the acceleration of each trial:

force(N) mass (Kg)  accel(m/s^2)  Potential energy

Here are some graphs:

Mass and Acceleration

Force and Acceleration

This lab was a lot different but also a good deal of fun. It was simple and challenging. The lab was challenging because we had to set up and be fluent in the language Lego Mindstorm and Labview, and also we had to be able to calculate acceleration which took a lot of unit conversion and math skill (I’m not great at either one of those things). But it was simple because we just had to watch and measure heights and speeds of some weights being raised in the air with a pulley.

Ever since the concept of energy has been around there have been many ways to generate it. Today, when our entire lives are run off of electricity in order to be productive, those different types of energy generation play a major role in our efficiency. Additionally, these different types of energy sources have different effects on the environment. Today, the way to create and generate electricity comes from the heating of water, which creates steam and turns the turbines that create electricity.

Coal is doing the worst damage to the environment of all fossil fuels. 40% of our energy comes from coal, and that means that coal is one of leading contributors to the future of our climate. It is a substance that is mined from below the Earth’s surface and is created from pressure on dead vegetation. Because it is created from pressure, coal takes millions of years to form. The amount of coal being mined will take longer than human existence to replenish, making it a fossil fuel. Coal is mined, and then burned to create steam, which is used to spin the turbines that create electricity. 93% of the coal mined in the US is consumed for the generation of electricity. When coal is burned some of the emissions that are expelled include Sulfur Dioxide (contributes to respiratory illness and acid rain), Nitrogen Oxides (contributes to respiratory illness and smog), and many other types of emissions.

Another fuel that is used to create electricity is natural gas. Natural gas is a fuel that is trapped in the shale rock layers deep within the earth. The process of extracting that gas is called hydraulic fracturing or simply fracking. In order to successfully frack, the fracking company must drill deep down to the shale rock and then inject pressurized fracking fluids into the rock, creating channels within the rock where the gas is then extracted. When the process is done, the drill hole is filled with cement. Then, the natural gas is taken to a plant and used to heat water that creates steam, similar to the coal burning process. The problem with this process is the fluid used to actually break the shale rock is highly toxic. The fluid contains 600 chemicals that are known to be toxic such as carcinogens, mercury, and formaldehyde. So basically, it’s like getting shale rock addicted to smoking cigarettes, because all of those chemicals are also found in cigarettes. These chemicals then leach out of the rock and can contaminate ground water, which is consumed by animals and humans.

Big fracking problem if ya ask me!

Finally, another way that electricity is generated is through nuclear energy. Nuclear energy comes from the splitting of uranium atoms in a process called fission. When done in the reactor of a nuclear power plant, the fission process gives off heat, which is applied to water and creates steam to turn turbines, therefore create electricity. A huge issue with nuclear power is the danger that comes along with splitting uranium atoms. Essentially, these power plants are giant nuclear bombs that have the potential to level entire geographical regions, something that happened in the case of Chernobyl in the 1980’s. Also these plants give off nuclear waste, which must be put somewhere, and can contaminate our soil and drinking water.

It is clear that we are using many different channels of generating electricity. However, all of the options that I have just talked about have extremely costly downsides. Unfortunately, almost all of the options we have to aid in the generation of electricity have some sort of downside. For now however, it seems that these are the worst options that we have, and yet we continue to use them more often than any others.

References

http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/Community/WhatIsNuclearEnergy.shtm

http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/nuclear.htm

http://www.dangersoffracking.com/

http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/coal.html

http://www.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=coal_home-basics

This lab involved a lot more mathematical and technical skill than the last lab. The goal of the lab was to set up the lego car and to have it run at a certain power amount, and we would measure the distance that it would travel using a meter stick. Then we would have to record the distances and times that would read out in the LabView application, and repeat the process three times for each power value. Using all of our collected data we would then have to calculate our percent error.

Data

Power= 15

Measured travel distance (cm)

1)   25.3

2)   25.5   Average dist.= 26.6cm, .260m (LabView readout)   # of turns= 1.47

3)   26

Power= 85

Measured travel distance (cm)

1)   30.2

2)   30      Average dist.= 30.1cm, .304m (LabView readout)   # of turns=1.7

3)   34

Power=95

Measured travel distance (cm)

1)   33.5

2)   33.3   Average dist= 30.1cm, .304m (Labview readout)   # of turns= 1.7

3)   33.4

% error

showing my work…

Power=15

            %error= 4.9%

Power=85

            %error= .99%

Power=95

            %error= 4.1%

Something that we had a hard time doing was getting an accurate reading on the ruler. The car would usually not travel in a perfectly straight line, which made it hard to measure the distance clearly. Also remembering the exact mark on the wheel to measure from was a challenge as well, but our % error stayed very low. From time to time our car would not run either too, but eventually it would catch up to the commands of the computer.

The issue of Global Warming has changed from a theory to a fact over the last few years due to most environmental scientists saying that it is a growing and real issue. The issue of global warming is something that touches each and every one of us on the planet, and it is up to us to do something about it. However, lets not be idealistic here. Most people will do very little to help better our environment, so that is why the world’s legislators must begin to spin the wheels of change and write and enforce environmental protection laws. An excellent example of that are the German green energy policies.

renewable energy. wind.

The bottom line for German energy is that it wants to derive 80% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2050, an ambitious goal for the world’s fifth largest economy. It is clear that Germany has already come leaps and bounds in attaining their goal, as they currently are at 25% of their energy coming from renewables. They did not think that this would come along quite so quickly, seeing how they were only at 7% thirteen years ago.

But while this is primarily an environmental effort, that’s not the only thing that has the potential to improve. Bloomberg.com says that since 2004 clean energy business investments and projects have grown by 122% and jobs in the energy sector have doubled in that same time period. They also report that since this quantum shift in energy dependency, Germany has the most dependable energy supply in all of Europe, meaning that the power seldom goes out in Germany.

renewable energy. solar.

This system is not without its flaws however. instituteforenergyresearch.org explains that in 2009 the cost of energy goes up every year by 10%. They explain that because of this energy price hike, Germans on average are forced to spend 34% of their yearly income on energy and rent. This energy policy has affected German business as well, as the energy bills go up the price of producing goods also grows. This has the potential to lead to Germany having a tough time becoming a true competitive economic force in Europe.

So this is a huge challenge for Germany; keep the progress in increasing the use of renewable energy while keeping costs low. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel is determined to make economics and environmental improvement less of a dichotomy and more of a partnership. In 2014 Merkel has said that if the cost of energy goes up for German industries, they must find ways to cut costs somewhere else, and plans to create even more jobs to expand the clean energy industry to help the economy.

References

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-14/2014-outlook-germanys-green-energy-switch

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-15/u-s-energy-policy-should-take-a-lesson-from-germany-s-energiewende.html

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2012/10/30/germanys-energy-policy-man-made-crisis-now-costing-billions/

Last week we started on our first experiment with Lego Mindstorm. The goal of this experiment was to assemble a car out of a set of Legos that as given to us, and to then make that car move in a multitude of directions and speeds. Looking at the original set that we were given, the challenge seemed daunting, especially given my extreme lack of mechanical experience. However, by the end of the assembly process we were running the system with a great amount of skill and enjoyment.

The car unit.

At the beginning of the process we were presented with a case of Legos. This case contained the standard Lego blocks, an engine with Ethernet ports, rubber wheels, and an assortment of cables. Luckily, to assemble the system there were step-by-step instructions available to us. Putting the hardware proved to be relatively easy, the only snag that we came across in that process was putting the small and dark-colored pieces together without losing them in the shaded obis of the carpet.

However, when it came to setting up the wires we had a few setbacks. There were Ethernet ports on either end of the engine, as well as on top of the wheel fixtures. With the instructions for assembly clearly laid out by or professor, we attached the cables to the ports on top of the wheel fixtures, and into ports 1 and 3 on the back and then ran a cable directly into the computer to run the program for the unit’s movement. Within the program we needed to create a controller for the actual unit, which was relatively easy. We needed to select the ports that would control the wheels in a drop down menu, but there was no option to control ports 1 and 3 in the menu. At first we were lost, but we noticed that there was an option for ports A and C that were on the other side of the engine. We then removed the wires from ports 1 and 3 and put them into A and C. We then went to our actual controller and attempted to power up the wheels, and the unit moved.

One end of the car.

When we got the program and unit up and running we got to play around with it a bit. In playing around with it we found out a lot about the functionality of the unit, such as if you power one wheel stronger than the other wheel you can make the unit turn. More interestingly, we found that if we put the same amount of energy into the wheels but made them go in opposite directions we could make the unit spin 360 degrees. However, when we were playing around with the system we would occasionally have our unit move by itself. This was due to the fact that we did not turn off the Bluetooth option on the engine and other groups were then able to control our unit from their computers. This led to the unit occasionally falling off of the table and for us to perform a quick repair on the car itself.

The other end of the car.

Overall this activity was challenging and fun. We put an actual car together and set up a program to make it move. This is something that I have not had a great deal of experience in and to finally do a hands on activity in this field was quite enjoyable.

Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast of the United States on October 22, 2012. The storm killed 117 people in the United States alone, and displaced countless families during its nine-day rage from Jamaica to Canada. Many things stand out as unusual in the case of Hurricane Sandy, such as how late in the season it came and the path that it took. Many point to climate change is the primary reason for the strange traits of Hurricane Sandy.

Hurricane Sandy destruction.

A major factor in why Hurricane Sandy was so destructive was a high-pressure system. This high-pressure system made the hurricane drive northward and stick over the land and leave a heavy path of destruction. Scientists say that normally during this time of year hurricanes have a hard time gathering strength due to the falling temperatures and low pressure systems. The change of the ocean’s temperature could have contributed to the storm’s intensity and longevity. According to LiveScience.com, the Atlantic Ocean’s surface temperature has gone up by 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, which can account for the air above these storms to hold 4% more moisture and contributes to vast increases in storm magnitude.

Compared to 25 years ago there have been increasing numbers of category 3 storms to reach our shores (winds with 129 mph gusts). A huge contributing factor to this is the higher sea levels that we have today. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization speculates that today’s sea levels have gone up by 8 inches from where they were 25 years ago. With a higher perch for a hurricane to ride along it can gain much greater speeds than they once could.

A graph showing the change in sea level over time.

Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University points to something else that could have contributed to the path of the storm. She states that the lack of ice in the Arctic Ocean could have been a catylist in pushing the storm westward and hitting most of the east cost of the United States. She says in a New York Times interview, “While it’s impossible to say how this scenario might have unfolded if sea-ice had been as extensive as it was in the 1980s, the situation at hand is completely consistent with what I’d expect to see happen more often as a result of unabated warming and especially the amplification of that warming in the Arctic”.

But what contributed to the melting of this ice was a phenomenon called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Mark Fischetti of scientificamerican.com points out the contributions of the NAO to Hurricane Sandy. The NAO is the type of pressure within the northern Atlantic Ocean, either positive or negative. In the case of Hurricane Sandy, the pressure changed from positive to negative only two weeks before the October 22 land strike of Sandy, which made the jet stream moving across the US to be more amplified. This amplification of the Jet Stream made the storm move in an unusual pattern.

Though not many are doubters of the climate change orgins of Hurricane Sandy, scientists are still cautious. It is clear from my research that no one wants to say that climate change was the one distinctive reason for the storm, but they do provide their hypothesis in establishing potential contributing factors such as the NAO and rising sea levels and temperatures.

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/oct/30/hurricane-sandy-supersized-climate-change

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/10/30/did-climate-change-cause-hurricane-sandy/

http://www.livescience.com/24377-weather-climate-hurricane-sandy.html

Our world today requires energy. Everything from charging your cell phone so you can text your friends to powering an entire hospital so patients can get the treatment that they need requires electricity, and in a lot of cases a large amount of electricity. But this electricity is not just picked out of the air, in fact there is a very laborious process that must take place in order for electricity to reach its destination. This is a process that has changed over time, as well as the dominant ways in which we power our lights, buildings, and homes.

Electricity and power is not something that naturally exists in our world, and it certainly is not delivered to our homes magically. The way that energy gets to businesses and our personal homes is through the nation’s energy grid, a system of over 450,000 high voltage power lines that criss-cross the entire country. The idea is to transmit electricity from the power creators (power plants) to consumers across the country (homes and businesses). Houses use relatively low voltages of electricity, but in order for power plants to send electricity to consumers, the electricity must be sent in high voltages so it can reach far away destinations. Power plants cannot produce energy at intensely high voltages so alternating current is needed to step the voltage up for transmission and then back down to lower voltages to be used in homes. The step up and step back down in voltage is completed by transformers. The power grid is the network of many miles of power lines that deliver electricity to homes across the country. In the US the grid is split into the Western Interconnection, Eastern Interconnection, and the Texas Interconnection and have control centers within them to regulate how much power is flowing at any given moment to match demand of electricity.

The national power grid is something of a modern marvel. A system that has the capability to deliver energy to everyone in the country and uses the technology of alternating currents to speed up and slow down the voltages that connect that power from the generators to the consumers requires years and years of research and development. The Global Energy Network Institute estimates that in 2002 the United States generated 3,836 billion kilowathours of electricity, which is an amazing feat.

However this network of wires can run into issues of reliability, safety, and efficiency. Much of this process happens above ground, which leaves all of the parts of the process of power delivery susceptible to the elements. This is why when there is a heavy thunderstorm or snowstorm power can occasionally be dropped, because one of the facets of the process has been compromised. On top of that, much of the hardware used to create the grid such as cables, poles, and transformers are on their last legs. The American Society of Civil Engineers predicts that if nothing is done about the aging grid, the whole system could break down as soon as the year 2020. As of now there are not many ways of simply storing the electricity that we produce, which puts more stress on the aging equipment. If we were to introduce some sort of energy storing battery system, the country could rely much more on renewable energy like wind and solar.

            Regardless of whether or not the US switches to a more renewable form of energy or if it stays with the current grid system, it is clear that changes need to be made. If the country waits until the end of 2020 to make serious improvements it could be too late. Luckily starting in 2010 there were many improvements made to modernize the grid and therefore lengthen its life substantially. However, we as consumers of energy must find a way to limit our use of electricity so that the life of the power grid will continue past its life expectancy.

Reverences

http://energy.gov/articles/top-9-things-you-didnt-know-about-americas-power-grid

http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/national_energy_grid/united-states-of-america/index.shtml

http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/07/07/33154/gridlock-storms-blackouts-expose-power-problems/