Author Archives: fernanrivero

The Keystone XL Pipeline

When the President initially vetoed the TransCanada Company’s proposed $7 billion Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline, it meant that 830,000 barrels of oil a day would not travel from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf’s oil refineries. Though a politically popular decision with environmentalists, it was very unpopular with construction unions, as well as most Americans.

In my opinion one of the main pros I can see is that the Keystone pipeline is not simply about oil, but also about thousands of jobs (estimated to be 20,000 construction and 100,000 indirect jobs) and significant effects on the economy. It’s therefore important to analyze the President’s decision.

One of the main cons I’ve found is about the big contamination the Keystone Pipeline could produce.

-Cons:

-Tar Sands oil is the dirtiest oil on the planet

Producing synthetic crude oil from tar sands generates three times the global warming pollution of conventional crude production. Extracting tar sands bitumen – a low-grade, high-sulfur crude oil that must be extensively refined to be turned into fuel – uses vast amounts of energy and water.

-Canadian tar sands oil would be exported

Keystone XL would have diverted Canadian oil from refineries in the Midwest to the Gulf Coast where it could be refined and exported. Many of these refineries are in Foreign Trade Zones where oil may be exported to international buyers without paying U.S. taxes.

The facts reveal this pipeline was never in America’s national interest. Clean energy and fuel efficiency is the path forward for economic and energy security in America – not another tar sands pipeline. By rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama is helping move America down a cleaner, safer path.

In the link below you can read different reasons about why the pipeline is not a good idea (cons):

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/01/18/six-reasons-keystone-xl-was-bad-deal-all-along/

-Pros:

-In the other hand we have the pros of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and they are mainly about economy:

A policy study shows that Keystone XL will generate approximately $1.8 billion in economic activity during construction in Nebraska alone. The study also found that Keystone XL will have a substantial tax impact, generating $134.6 million in state and local levies.

Here I’ll enclose a pair of videos defending this huge pipeline:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aWPZxQ7Omk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiMHj-YIky0#t=31

PS: In the link below you can read a really interesting article I’ve found, maybe it could help you to understand a little more about the problem and the other external factors that may influence in the government decisions:

http://nypost.com/2014/03/29/the-keystone-pipeline-is-obamas-best-revenge-on-putin/

Sources:

http://www.20minutos.com/noticia/11242/0/polemico-oleoducto-keystone-xl/sufre-reves/anularse-tramo-nebraska/

http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001628

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41668.pdf

Brainstorming Session

The first day, professor Greg Sonek chose the working groups, we have to present our final experiment. It has to be related to something we have seen in class.

The next day, after a wonderful experiment done in class, my colleagues and I initiated the group brainstorm about our final project. The truth is that the three of us got a lot of interesting ideas, but not all were valid. We had to find an experiment that we could perform in class, while allowing us to take a series of measurements about what we were showing.

Some of the ideas we had was to create our own stirling heat engine or use the power of steam of a pressure pot to make a series of measurements. However we decided to test the efficiency of different types of light bulbs. For this we’ll need several things: a hand crank generator, different types of bulbs, a DC power supply and a voltmeter.

So, what we decided is to build our own hand crank generator, then we connect the different light bulbs to it one by one. We turn the crank generator and we see how easy it is to light up the light bulbs. To make the experiment measurable, we replace the crank generator for a DC power supply. To find out the voltage needed to turn the bulbs on, we’ll use a voltmeter, so we can calculate the efficiency.

The President’s Climate Action Plan

Ultimately, we need a comprehensive energy and climate policy that prices carbon pollution and levels the playing field for renewable sources of energy that are not degrading our climate and planet. But given that USA has an intransigent Congress (the current House Science Committee leadership continues to deny even the existence of human-caused climate change), the president has been forced to turn to executive actions. His call for carbon emission limits on all coal-fired power plants, not just newly built plants, is a bold step forward. It will go some way to stemming our growing carbon emissions and the impact they are having on our climate.

Finally, the president spelled out promising ways forward to introduce greater incentives for renewable, non-carbon based energy; reduce energy usage/improve energy efficiency; and adapt to those climate change impacts which are already locked in and unavoidable.

CUT CARBON POLLUTION IN AMERICA:

• Directs the EPA to establish carbon pollution standards for both new and existing power plants.

• Promises $8 billion in loan guarantees for fossil fuel projects.

• Directs the Interior Department to permit 10 gigawatts of wind and solar projects on public lands by 2020.

• Expands the president’s Better Building Challenge, helping buildings cut waste to become at least 20 percent more energy efficient by 2020.

• Sets a goal to reduce carbon pollution by at least 3 billion metric tons cumulatively by 2030 through efficiency standards set for appliances and federal buildings.

• Commits to developing fuel economy standards for heavy-duty vehicles.

• Aims to reduce hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases.

• Directs agencies to develop a comprehensive methane strategy.

Commits to forests and other landscape protection.

PREPARE THE UNITED STATES FOR THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE:

• Directs agencies to support local investment to help vulnerable communities become more resilient to the effects of global warming.

• Establishment of flood-risk reduction standards in the Hurricane Sandy-affected region.

• Will work with the health-care industry to create sustainable, resilient hospitals.

• Distribution of science-based information for farmers, ranchers and landowners.

• Establishment of the National Drought Resilience Partnership to make rangelands less vulnerable to catastrophic fires.

• Climate Data Initiative will provide information for state, local and private-sector leaders.

LEAD INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO ADDRESS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE:

• Commits to expanding new and existing initiatives, including those with China, India and other major emitting countries.

• Calls for the end of U.S. government support for public financing of new coal-fired power plants overseas.*

• Expands government capacity for planning and response.

The Museum of Science

I’ll start the blog saying it is the third time I’ve visited the museum this year.

The Museum of Science is an outstanding science museum! Albeit it’s geared towards kids, there is a lot of things for adults as well.

They have a number of various areas covered in this museum. Everything from animals, to the scietific method, trail and error, electricity, experimentation, advancements in technology, etc. There were a million items happening here simultaneously.

This museum had several interactive items for kids and adults alike. Some are obviously more child oriented but allow for competition between kids or even between adults(like we did…)

I don’t agree with some of the hypothesis that the museum declared as fact. For example the politics of global warming. There is not yet confirmation that this is a man made thing and not just a normal cyclical thing. Perhaps if we had more data than it would be solid but with scientists on both sides of this, it would be interesting to see both viewpoints covered, wouldnt it?

In the link below, you can see an exhibition of large-scale color photographs about the climate change in the world:

http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/exhibit.php

One of the most helpful things I’ve seen in the museum, related to our class, was about learning how wind turbines generate electricity. There is a really interesting exhibit about this theme.

In the link below you can learn a little more about this show named “Catching the Wind”:

http://www.mos.org/exhibits/catching-the-wind

Pandora’s Promise

Pandora’s Promise is an amazing documentary with an excellent technical bill that could be described quite simply as pro-nuclear, and exposes to the viewer to heavy doses of confusion and, why not say, propaganda, (even with that it’s still a great job). Maintained at all times within the limits of the excessive, gets raise serious doubts about the pros and cons of this form of power so feared by the general public and probably so unknown. It starts with the shocking proposal that a small cube of radioactive material can produce incredible amounts of energy.

The documentary, which was shown in the past Sundance Festival, begins by showing the testimony of American Ecologists recognized locally with career in anti-nuclear activist who openly declare themselves in favor of this misunderstood and mysterious form of energy. In its reasoning, always maintaining his absolute conviction in defense of middle-atmosphere conclude that this is the only power that can truly compete against fossil threatening while supplying a world suffers an increasing need for energy will likely double in the coming years.

Pandora’s Promise gets surprise and shudder us when goes with these witnesses to places like Fukushima or Chernobyl. These brave incursions are made with “Geiger counter” in hand, allowing us to compare directly the levels of residual radiation from these places marked by fate with many other parts of the world, filmed with the same pattern for more visual impact. Great sequence that shows that there is natural radiation everywhere, more at higher altitudes, and the levels do not seem to have an important relationship with sites affected by nuclear accidents like Chernobyl, 58 countries with nuclear reactors as France or natural beaches in Brazil. A simple but very striking exercise.

If a statement that makes this documentary proves absolutely certain is that there is a serious general ignorance about nuclear energy, real use, and even their potential dangers. Audience and documentary are discovering surprising facts together on this important issue. With the help of interesting archive images and computer simulations, Pandora’s Promise tries to explain that nuclear power and the atomic bomb are different things, still today the burning of coal not only produces practically all the energy we consume, but it is still the fastest growing despite being the most toxic; renewable energies depend on the gas to compensate for their lack of regularity, and many other amazing facts that seek to change the view that the public has about atomic energy.

The documental provides interesting interviews that show us scientists that when they began to develop this energy were just little more than environmental dreamers who augured that all would work today with this clean and “renewable” energy, and also shows us that behind the campaign of fear and the media rejection are the companies which are living on fossil fuels, and finally points out the American political class as the main cause of failure of nuclear energy.

We can believe what they say or not, but at least it worths spending time entertaining with Pandora’s Promise, a documentary, also interesting, is notably well made and fun just for the fact of selling an idea contrary to all established.

MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory

The MITR-II is the major experimental facility of the NRL, is a heavy-water reflected, light-water cooled and moderated nuclear reactor that utilizes flat, plate-type, finned, aluminum-clad fuel elements.

Thanks to the website, we know that the MIT Research Reactor is used primarily for the production of neutrons. To put the reactor into operation, the control blades are raised very slowly. As they absorb fewer and fewer neutrons, more and more neutrons are available to cause the splitting of uranium nuclei, until finally enough neutrons are being released to sustain a chain reaction.

The MITR research program encompasses most aspects of neutron science and engineering including nuclear medicine. Some of these activities are:

-Boron neutron capture therapy

-Radiation synovectomy

-Neutron activation analysis for the identification of trace elements and isotope ratios in geological specimens

-Fission engineering

-Materials testing

-Training

-Neutron transmutation doping of silicon

The MITR is one of only six facilities in the world to be engaged in patient trials for the use of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) to treat both brain tumors and skin cancer. The MITR fission converter beam is the first to be designed for BNCT.

The MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory offers raining, research, and educational opportunities with laboratory courses of MIT undergraduate and graduate-level, research projects as part of Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), student reactor operator training program, senior and graduate thesis research projects, and Independent Activity Courses.

The MIT-NRL also maintains a successful public outreach program. The educational and outreach activities include:

MIT provides tours and lectures to the general public that help people who doesn’t study there to know more about this nuclear reactor (~1500 individuals per year). So our class has been lucky for the chance given.

PS: if someone would want to go, call to number (617) 253-4211 and fill out a form given in the MIT webpage. (http://web.mit.edu/nrl/www/index.html)

Fukushima Daiichi

On 11th March 2011 happened one of the most serious nuclear accident in history after the one occurred in Chernobyl.

One the most violent earthquake recorded and one tsunami off the coast of Japan seriously affected the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

At the moment of the accident there were a total of 6 reactors available, three of them were in operation; immediately after the earthquake they stopped automatically, however, electrical energy was needed to cool them, but the supply of electricity stopped because of the earthquake, so diesel engines were used, but with the subsequent arrival of the tsunami also stopped working. At this time the problems started: unable to cool down, the meltdown of the reactors was confirmed.

The day after the earthquake, there were several explosions that led to the evacuation of the population within first 20 kilometers and 40 kilometers later, since it was an accident classified Level 7 of INES (radioactivity were released to the exterior).

Fukushima marked a before and after in the development of nuclear energy.

–Japan’s new energy strategies:

Ambitious Targets Toward 2030:

-Halving CO2 emissions from the residential sector.

-Maintaining and enhancing energy efficiency in the industrial

sector at the highest levels in the world.

-Maintaining or obtaining major shares of global markets for

energy-related products and systems.

+Domestic energy-related CO2 emissions will decline by 30% or

Iceland’s Use of Geotermal Energy

Iceland is located in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which makes it in one of the most tectonically active places in the world, with great potential to produce renewable energy. It has more than 200 volcanoes and 600 hot springs (high temperature fields reach up to 250º).

The uses of steam fields are really varied, offering everything from pools to heat homes. Initially, and focusing on geothermal energy, its inhabitants used the hot springs for bathing and washing clothes.

In 1907 they realized that they could give other uses as heating system. Since that moment, and throughout the years, pipes and pipelines were constructed. Through these tubes, hot water got houses, schools and hospitals nearby.

It is noteworthy that the government has also played an important role at this development as it has economically driven research of this phenomenon in order to take advantage.

Currently this geothermal energy heats more than 60% of households also can generate electricity, space heating, pools, greenhouses …

I should also say that, besides geothermal energy, the region is fed on a larger scale with hydropower, able to supply a large part of the inhabitants of electricity.

Iceland is the first country in the world that has a primarily fueled by renewable energy economy.

With the next video you could perfectly understand how geothermal energy works in Iceland.

Sources:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/es/news-room/content/20120203STO37172/html/Islandia-experta-en-energ%C3%ADas-renovables-y-en-el-%C3%81rtico

http://www.claneco.com/cl/energia-geotermica-en-islandia/

http://grupo02termo.wordpress.com/

Stirling Heat Engine – Peltier Device

Stirling Heat Engine

This is a closed cycle heat engine which operates by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas at different temperature levels, so the mechanical energy is produced.

It was conceived in 1816 as a competitor of the steam engine by Robert Stirling and its use was limited to various domestic applications that require low power, compared with the steam engine, is more efficient, quiet and easy to use, since you can use it with almost any heat source.

In the below video, you can see how a stirling heat engine works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL4AA8E4EB073924A5&v=Dc2QoP0JQSA

At present, due to the compatibility with alternative sources it has become very important, as concerns about depletion and increases in oil prices have led to increase the interest in this type of engine that combines heat and electricity.

Some of its main applications are: automotive engines, electric vehicles, aircraft engines, marine motors, or pump motors.

The Stirling engine is well suited for power systems under water where electrical work is required continuously. Many submarines work from the hand of these engines since 1980, and it is still used today.

Peltier Device

Also known as thermoelectric modules are small solid-state devices that work as heat pumps, when electricity is applied, the heat is absorbed from one side of the device to the other, so that one will be cold and the other hot (Peltier effect).

It serves to heat exchange without the need for moving parts, that is, to heat or cool in both directions.

Currently, its most common use is as part of the CPU cooling computers, but can also be found in household dehumidifiers equipment as it is quieter and more compact than the compression system.

Sources:

http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/ugrad/351/oldslides/Lecture11.pdf

https://www.stirlingengine.com/

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

Solar Energy Lab

In this solar experiment, we were asked to understand the relationship between light intensity and the voltage output of the solar cell as well as the relationship between the wavelength of light and the voltage output of the solar cell.

To perform this experiment, we are provided with one solar cel, one voltage probe, one light source and several colored film filters. We’ll need the same program than with before experiments (Labview VI) to find out the voltage output of the solar cell. Then finally, we’ll had to use Excel to write down all the data and make a chart.

We can distinguish two parts in this experiment.

The fist one, where we just had to put the light over the solar cel without any filter. We repeated this process six times, each time putting the light farther from the cell, so changing the light intensity.

Distance Average Voltage

0cm 0.069 (no light)

0cm 0.404 Light

5 cm 0.356 Light

8 cm 0.298 Light

10 cm 0.333 Light

12 cm 0.325 Light

We can understand with this that the further the distance the lower the voltage; this is due to the fact that the solar cell captures less light when the flashlight is at a greater distance.

In the second part of the experiment, we didn’t change the distance of the light, but we put different colored filters. We tried 5 different times; the first one without filter, and then changing from light blue to red.

In this chart we can see how the filter affect to the voltage even in the distance of the light doesn’t change:

PS: at the end of the experiment we found out that a cable was a little broken so maybe the data is not exactly.