Month: October 2013

In this lab we looked at Faraday’s law, which state “Changing magnetic fluxes through coiled wires generate electricity”. As we increase the change is the magnetic flux, the current and the voltage will increase. For this experiment, we used a generator, voltage probe, NXT and NXT adopter. The generator has a magnet that moves inside a coil of wire. The activity was to shake the tube and see how much power we can generate. We started with zero then as we increased the number of shakes, the voltage became greater. We collected some data to see how much power was generated based on the number of shakes we did. We repeated the experiment a couple of times with different rates of shakes. The data were presented in an Excel sheet to find the sum of the square of the voltage. After that we took the number of shakes and the sum to draw a graph. The graph illustrated that the faster we shake the tube, the greater the voltage will be.

 

 

 

Each government works to fulfill the responsibilities it has towards its citizens. One of these duties is to create a clean environment that allows people to have a decent life. The Obama administration is working on some actions to control issues concerning climate change. Some of these initiatives are cutting carbon pollution in America, prepare the country for sever climate events and leading international effort to address the global climate change.

 

Cut Carbon Pollution in America :

The Obama administration goal is to reduce the greenhouse gas emission, that lead to global warming, to take control over the climate change disasters. Now, they are increasing the generation of electricity by using wind and solar energy which indeed will help to reduce the carbon emission and pollution. Another way is by cutting carbon from power plant and use renewable energy source. Obviously, there isn’t a law to prevent plants from releasing carbon but many states and companies are shifting to cleaner sources to use.

 

Prepare the United State for the Impacts of Climate :

The concern is how to control the climate change and avoid the impacts it cause to the country. The U.S made a crucial step by releasing a climate change adoption plan. This is basically strategies to protect certain missions and programs from any climate effect. One step to prepare the people for the climate actions is building stronger and safer communities and infrastructure. Improve hospital’s capacity to serve more patients and building a stronger infrastructure that can withstand against storms.

 

Lead International Effort to Address Global Climate Change:

The Obama administration is working on the climate change actions to reduce the greenhouse gas emission. Therefore, working with other emitting countries like India and China will help to achieve the goals related to climate change. There are many actions that have been addressed with regard to climate change. Reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation is a one which represent one third of the global emission. The Obama administration is working with other governments to make a system that reduces land use related to emission. Also, another action is expanding clean energy use and cut energy waste. Most of the emission can be assign to energy use.

The MIT nuclear reactor tour was very interesting and helped us to understand nuclear power. The tour started with a lecture by one of the staff that work at MIT. He gave us an introduction of what is a reactor and how does it work to produce energy. Then he talked about the fusion process which is basically when two atomic nuclei emerge into a heavier atomic nucleus to release energy. In order for this process to occur, high temperatures and pressures are needed. The MIT reactor uses hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms that have less mass than two hydrogen. They use light water to keep the reactor cool and heavy water as a reflector. MIT nuclear reactor is not only for energy use but for research purposes like medicine. Most people fear the nuclear power radiations and always look at the negative side ignoring the benefits the world can get from this source of energy.

Tom Vales introduced us to three different engines and machines that demonstrated concepts related to electricity. Peltier device, Sterling engine, Mendocino motor and other devices were what he used to show us some interesting experiments. The Peltier device was basically two metal one in a hot water and the other in a cold water. The experiment showed that the device will generate current, therefore; an electricity would be created. Two famous applications use this device are power fan and microprocessor.

 

The Stirling engine, which was invented by Robert Stirling, is considered as an air compressor that moves hot and cold air inside it causing it to work. Low fraction is needed for this machine to create energy. The Mendocino motor has four sides and a rotor block in the middle of a shaft that has a magnet. Solar energy is also used to run this machine and convert light to electricity. The last thing he presents to us was the Telsa coil and the violet-ray devices. The Telse power generate and produce voltage to the air, where you can light up lamps without connecting them to the power.

The Pandora’s Promise is a documentary that mainly discusses the nuclear power and its effects on the people and the environment. The film started by presenting several scientists and environmentalists talking about how they were anti-nuclear and what made them to change their point of view. They stated that the idea of opposing nuclear energy was related to the risks the radiations do to the human beings and nature. However, analyzing the issue with other scientists and physicists who are experts allowed them to look at nuclear energy from a different angle. The problem of opposing the nuclear is that people do not realize the difference between the nuclear power and the nuclear weapons.

The film gave an example of a nuclear power accident happened in Japan where an environmentalist visited the area to measure the radiations of the explosion. The result came shocking to some because the radiation measurement was very low comparing with other places. The media always shows the negative side and how the radiations bring illnesses and damages to the world. Since the first usage of nuclear was nuclear weapons, people became scared of this energy source. There has been rallies and protests by ignorant people against the use of nuclear power as a source of energy. People are afraid because they have been always exposed the cons of nuclear not the pros. A significant thing those people do not notice is that we have radiations around us all the time. These natural radiations have been measured in certain cities around the world; surprisingly, it is higher than what the nuclear power would cause. The documentary illustrates that by giving an example of a Brazilian beach. Scientists have a big and crucial role in educating the people of the nuclear benefits.

The nuclear energy is safe, clean and has no harm on the earth. It’s an unlimited source of energy that can be use to generate electricity and heat. In order to get energy from any other source, we need to at least burn another source to generate power. The most widely source of energy used is the coil, thus, it kills thousands of people every year.  On the other hand, nuclear is the second safest after wind and it’s even safer than solar energy. Considering these facts, coil is more dangerous than nuclear power. The waste from the nuclear energy does not cause any problems and it also can be recycled to fuel. Using nuclear power might put an end to the climate change and global warming issues that cause a distraction like Sandy storm in 2012.

In this activity we looked at Newton second law of motion, which state “The rate of change of momentum is proportional to the imposed force and goes in the direction of the force.”, the law of conservation of energy, velocity vs acceleration and power. We used a robot, pulley, Lego Mindstorm motor and a ruler to determine the acceleration at different mass and power level. We used the motor and the pulley to lift weights at the same power level but different mass. The acceleration decreased every time we added more mass; however, when the mass was the same and the power level was different, the acceleration was higher every time we raised the power. Graph were used on an Excel sheet to illustrate each event. This part of the experiment explored Newton 2nd low(Force = Mass*Acceleration); therefore, we can say that the higher the power the higher the acceleration will be and the more the mass the lower the acceleration will be. Considering the gravity, if we drooped tow objects at the same time they will arrive to the ground at the same moment no matter what the mass is because they have the same acceleration, based on Newton second low.

 

The second part of the experiment was to explore the conservation of energy by calculating the potential energy using the Excel sheet. The formula for that is as follows Ep = mgh. After that we examine the relationship between the battery discharge and the mass and that was illustrated by the next graph. The result showed that the higher the mass the grater that battery discharge will be.

 

 

The last part was to calculate the power used (Power used = mgh/t) for all the runs. The result of this experiment can be taken from the next graph. It showed that the higher the power level the higher the power used will be.

 

The fuel efficiency is mostly depends on the design which focus on the shape and weight of the vehicle. Governments set a policy to make cars more efficient and has higher gas mileage. Some carmakers argued against this fuel rule. According to New York Times, “While the American carmakers, as well as their Asian rivals, once argued against even minimal increases in government fuel rules, they are acquiescing without protest to an increase to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, from the current 27 miles per gallon.” Companies can increase gas mileage by electrical or hybrid cars. This of course will need developing technology that will cost auto industry a lot; therefore, the automobile price will rise. Car makers were concerned that the people will not pay for better technology; however the result came on a surprise. The number of people buying small cars has increased. These fuel regulations will save car users money and help to reduce gas emission.

 

Hybrid vehicle uses a combination of gasoline engines and electrical motors. This allows the vehicle to be more efficient, use less gas and achieves more mileage. These vehicle prices are expected to be higher because of the technology used to build it. Using 2013 Fusion Hybrid “Tinskey talks about specialized technology such as EV+, which uses GPS to learn your most frequent routes in order to maximize your electric-only driving.” Some carmakers suggested that hybrid cars are not the only way to increase gas mileage. To make the mile per gallon rise, the car should have a compressed air to generate power with. The article stated that “Internal combustion engines produce power by sucking an air-gas mixture into a cylinder, compressing it with a piston and igniting it with a spark. The resulting explosion forces the piston down, which generates power.” Other technologies such as cylinder deactivation, direct fuel injection and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) can also be used in the future.

 

References

 

 

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/01/31/how-technology-is-boosting-hybrids-gas-mileage.aspx

 

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/phevtech.shtml

 

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/hybrids-not-the-only-answer-2.aspx