Tesla Motors:

Tesla Motors is a company that designs, manufactures, and sells electric cars including the Tesla Roadster, Model S, and Model X. Their first car, the Tesla Roadster, was the first electric sports car made. The company was founded in 2003 by a group of engineers who wanted to design the world’s first electric cars. The Tesla Roadster came out in 2008 and four years later, Model S hit the streets. Model S is a sedan that can travel from 0 to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds and travel 265 miles per charge according to teslamotors.com. The Model X is in production now and it is supposed to arrive in 2015. They are designing it as a mix between an SUV and a minivan to accommodate different types of people and families. 

The difference between regular cars and electric cars are the superchargers. It lets Model S and Model X owners to charge their cars at locations around the world. Electric cars may be more expensive but they can travel much more miles on one charge as opposed to a regular car on a tank of gas. For example, the Roadster can travel 245 miles per charge and the Model S can travel 265 miles per charge.

Tesla Motors have also helped by lowering the dependence on petroleum-based transportation thus lowering the price of electric cars. Their goal is to make the cars more affordable to people  and putting more electric cars out on the street.

Electric Cars replace the Internal Combustion Engine with an electric motor. The motor converts electricity into mechanical power and it also turns mechanical power into electricity like a generator. With the Internal Combustion Engine, only 30% of energy in gasoline is used to move the car and the rest is wasted as heat and noise. Also, torque is instantly available at an RPM (Revolutions per minute) while torque is only available after many thousand RPMs in an engine. When the car is in need of a charge, any 110-volt or 220-volt outlet can be used for charging the battery. This gives the owners freedom to charge it whenever they want or whenever they need to.

 

Fisker Automotive:

Fisker Automotive was founded by Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler in 2007. The first premium hybrid electric car, Fisker Karma, arrived in mid-2011. The United States Bankruptcy Court for Delaware filed an order for the sale of Fisker Automotive in February of 2014. Wanxiang America Corporation is the new owner and the company was renamed, The New Fisker.

Like the Tesla vehicles, the Fisker Karma has a large battery pack, but it also has a small gasoline engine as well. The battery can also be charged at outlets in a home. They also have solar cells that can be placed on a roof of a house or garage to help recharge the battery. It has two modes-the Stealth Drive and the Sports Drive. In the Stealth Drive, it is quiet, like Tesla vehicles, and it can travel up to 50 miles per charge. It has no emissions and it can travel from 0 to 60 mph in 7.5 seconds. In the Sports Drive, it can drive up to 100 miles per gallon. It can go from 0 to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds. It releases some emissions in this mode, it is still less than a regular gasoline engine. In general, electric cars are expensive but they are a better option for the environment and does not release any emissions.

References:

http://www.teslamotors.com/about

http://thenewfisker.com

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/hybrid-technology/fisker-karma3.htm

http://www.teslamotors.com/roadster/technology/motor

For this lab, we had to use the lego mindstorm motor to life weights with a pulley. The terms we were working on for this lab were Newton’s second law, force=mass x acceleration, velocity, the law of conservation of energy, and power. We used the same computer program as last week which is Labview.

For the first set of trials, we had to do 4 runs keeping the same power and changing the mass each time. We were given weights of 20 grams each.

For the second set of trials, we had to do 4 runs keeping the same mass and changing the power each time. We used the 20 gram weights again.

The graphs to show the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration for the first set of trials.

Here is the graph for the second set of trials.

In the United States and around the world, electricity is needed. The electric power needed is generated from other sources of primary energy. The energy from the primary source is then used to create the electricity delivered to consumers. In this blog, I will discuss 3 ways electricity is generated-coal-fired, natural gas, and nuclear power plants.

Coal:

According to eia.gov in 2013, about 67% of the electricity generated was from fossil fuels and 39% was from coal. Coal-fired electricity is the process of turning water into steam and the steam drives the turbine generators to produce

electricity. The coal needs to be turned in order to turn the water into steam. Before the coal is burned, it is turned into a fine powder. It is mixed with hot air and is thrown into the firebox of a boiler. The firebox is a chamber in the boiler fuel is burned to heat the boiler’s water to steam. Water is pumped through pipes in the boiler and is turned to steam by the coal burning. The steam has a huge amount of pressure and it is used to push against large turbine blades. The turbines are connected to the generator. In the generator, magnets are spun with wire coils to produce electricity.

After the steam has done its job, it is turned back into water. Cool water from a river or lake is pumped through tubes and it converts the steam back into water. The water can be used over and over again without contaminating the source of the water.

Natural Gas:

The next highest contributor to electricity generation is natural gas. Reliance on electricity generated

through natural gas has increased over time. Burning fossil fuels such as coal is cheaper then natural gas, however, it also releases high levels of pollutant into the air. The environmental damage fossil fuels have caused has forced electric generators to switch to alternative methods such as natural gas.

Natural gas is pumped into a gas turbine. It is mixed with hot air, like the coal, and converted into heat energy. Burning the natural gas also produces combustion gas. Mixed with heat, the combustion gas expands and builds pressure in the turbine. This process is similar to the coal-burning because the enormous amount of pressure drives the blades of the gas turbine to spin. However with natural gas, the spinning converts some heat energy into mechanical energy. A shaft connects the turbine to a generator. As the blades spin, the generator uses an electromagnetic field to convert the mechanical energy into electrical energy.

The combustion gas is piped to the heat recovery steam generator. Just like coal, the pipes are used to turn water into steam. The combustion gas goes up through the exhaust stack. The exhaust stack is built very tall so the gas can disperse without touching the ground. Unlike coal-burning, this does not affect the quality of the air around the station. Just like coal, water from the sea is pumped through the pipes to convert the steam into water again. The water is then pumped back into the sea to be reused.

Nuclear Power Plants:

Electricity generated through nuclear power plants totals to about 19% of the electricity generation. Like coal and natural gas, in a nuclear-fueled power plant, water is turned into steam and the steam pressure is used to drive the turbine generators to produce electricity. However, the source of heat is different and there is no combustion. The heat to make the steam at a nuclear power plant is created when uranium atoms split. This process is called fission.

The first nuclear reactor is the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). This process keeps water under pressure so it heats but doesn’t boil. The heated water is pumped through pipes in a steam generator. The water going through the steam generator turns into steam and then drives the turbine generators. The heated water from the reactor and the steam never mix because they are kept in separate systems. The other nuclear reactor is the Boiling Water Reactor(BWR). The water is heated by fission and turns into steam. The steam is then used to drive the turbines. In both reactors, the water used can be pumped back into the river or lake and reused.

 

 

Conclusion:

While coal-burning the cheapest form of generating electricity, it does ruin the air quality by releasing greenhouse gases and pollutants that are harmful to humans and wildlife. Natural gas has been the go-to for many companies especially because of the environmental impact. Natural gas is the cleanest of all the fossil fuels. It creates less greenhouse gas emissions than coal. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, uses uranium, which is a nonrenewable source that cannot be replaced by humans. While nuclear power plants do not emit pollutants into the air while generating electricity, fossil fuel emissions can be emitted into the air during uranium extraction from mining. All three ways use large amounts of water to turn into steam which could affect the aquatic life. The good thing about these ways is that the water can be reused. I hope companies have seen the environmental impacts these three ways have, good and bad, and make a good decision as to what to use to generate our electricity.

References:

http://www.duke-energy.com/about-energy/generating-electricity/coal-fired-how.asp

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3

http://www.edfenergy.com/energyfuture/generation-gas

http://www.duke-energy.com/about-energy/generating-electricity/nuclear-how.asp

http://naturalgasnb.com/cms/en/home/whatisnaturalgas/theenvironment/environmentalimpact.aspx

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

On the first day, we just built a Basic Two-Motor NXT Car. My partner and I got had few slight problems with the Lego pieces, but we got it to work in the end. On the second day, we connected the battery to the car and then the whole thing to the computer. Our task for the second day was to test the car with a time and power we selected on the program called Labview. The program let us select time period we wanted the car to run for (ex. 1 or 2 seconds) and the power (25 or 50). As the car runs, the computer would show us exactly the distance it traveled, the number of turns, and the velocity, but we also had to measure the distance ourselves to see how close we got to the actual distance determined by the program. We had to do 3 trials with a certain time and power x 3 (so it was 9 trials in total). Another thing that we needed to know for the number of wheel turns was the circumference of the tire.

Circumference= π(diameter) = 0.18 meters

Before we could start the trials, we needed some thing: a ruler and tape. The ruler was used so we could measure the distance the car went each trial. The tape was to let us know where the car started from.

First set of trials:

Time: 2 seconds

Power: 50

Trial #                   Trial 1              Trial 2                Trial 3

Measured              0.35                    0.365                     0.362

Computer            0.355                   0.369                      0.3685

# of Turns            1.9722                 2.05                        2.0472

Velocity                0.1775                 0.1845                    0.18425

% Error                1.418%                1.089%                     1.78%

 

2nd set of trials:

Time: 3 seconds

Power: 25

Trial #                Trial 1              Trial 2               Trial 3

Measured            0.24                    0.235                    0.24

Computer           0.24                   0.2355                  0.2395

# of Turns           1.333                  1.3083                 1.33056

Velocity               0.08                   0.0785                  0.07983

% Error                0%                     0.212%                  0.208%

 

Last set of trials:

Time: 6 seconds

Power: 25

Trial #                 Trial 1                Trial 2                   Trial 3

Measured           0.454                     0.474                         0.47

Computer          0.4653                  0.475                         0.466

# of turns           2.575                   2.63889                    2.58889

Velocity             0.07725                 0.07916                    0.07766

% Error              2.071%                   0.211%                     0.855%

 

The percent error of our trials were pretty close. They varied from 0% to 2% which means that the measuring skills were good. We got really close to the distance determined by the computer almost every time. The reason why it could have been a little off was that the car would sometimes not run in a straight line which made it a little difficult to measure. I would move the car to a straight line once it had stopped and tried to get it as close as possible. Another reason why the percentage error could have been a bit off was because of the ruler. For some of the trials, the ruler was too short for the distance the car had gone so measuring could have gotten messy there. Overall, the percentage error for the trials were very close and we even got a review of what velocity, distance, and acceleration is.

Fracking:

Without fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, America’s oil and natural gas resources would not be as abundant as they are now. Fracking has played a huge role in the development of these resources for many years. According to energyfromshale.org, there are an estimated 35,000 wells in the United States that are used with the fracking method and that there have been over one million wells since the first well in the 1940s.

Hydraulic fracturing uses water and sand to create breaks in the earth to allow resources to come up from the rock where it is trapped. This method has been used for many years for a safe way to extract oil and natural gas from deep in the earth for more than 60 years. It has provided us with a way to safely extract these resources while still being environmentally friendly.

How it Works:

It all starts at a well located above ground. They use drill pipes and bits to drill down to below the water level. It is almost like they are making vertical wells branch off from the horizontal one on the ground. They pump water, as well as sand, into the horizontal well at a high pressure. The water is then pumped from the horizontal well to the vertical wells in the ground. The water and sand at the high pressure will cause breaks in the rock which will then release and extract gas, oil, and water into the cracks. The resources then travel up to the main horizontal well.

Here is a video that will show the process in more detail:

http://youtu.be/YemKzEPugpk

The Pros:

-People get to access these resources that are hidden way below sea level that would normally be very hard to get a hold of

-Fracking only involves drilling one well then it can be branched off to many locations

-Less dependence on foreign oil

-Getting domestic natural gas can bring a lot of revenue

-Create jobs

-Americans will get much more natural gas

-Natural gas more environmentally friendly than oil or coal

-reduces emissions (there are arguments against this)

 

The Cons:

-Wells are situated near farms which could cause damage to crops and equipment

-Fluid that is pumped along with the water and sand could be harmful (ex. according to earthworksaction.org, The fissures in the rocks are created by injecting propane or nitrogen. sometimes, they use a process call acidizing where they pump hydrochloric acid into the fissures to to dissolve rock material and this helps the gas, oil, and water to flow more easier into the well.)

-According to earthworksaction.org, there have been studies that have shown that more than 90% of tracking fluids remain in the ground

-Fracking chemicals are toxic to humans and animals and some could cause cancer

-Chemicals could linger into water

-Humans can be exposed to fracking chemicals through the water, air, or skin contact

 

Environmental Impacts:

-The water used for fracking has raised concern about aquatic resources. The EPA estimated that about 70 to 140 billion gallons of water were used for 35,000 wells in the U.S. every year.

-The toxic chemicals used along with the water and sand are used in large quantities. They would be deadly if it came in contact with humans or wildlife. There have been various examples of spills in waterways in the news. According to earthworksaction.org, in 2013, 41 spills were impacted in Colorado alone.

-Air quality in the vicinity of the wells have been measured and in Texas, high levels of benzene have been found. These chemicals could be found in the air due to chemical spills or leaking pipes.

However, with all these environmental concerns that come with hydraulic fracturing, companies have recently been using non-toxic additives and additives that are not harmful to marine life.

References:

http://www.energyfromshale.org/hydraulic-fracturing/how-hydraulic-fracturing-works

http://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/hydraulic_fracturing_101#.VBSN0UtH3FI

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/hydraulic-fracking3.htm

http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/health/case_studies/hydrofracking_w.html

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

Energy Grids and How They Work

From when we take that shower in the morning to wake us up to turning the light on when we go into a dark room, we use energy. We might not think about it too much but there is a lot that goes on to get a computer running or to keep a refrigerator cold. It might be easy to just flip the switch to turn on the light but its more complicated than that.

There are four main components of the energy grid or the power distribution grid:

generation, transmission, distribution, and load

The whole process starts with generation, which is mainly creating the electrical energy at the power plant. Power plants usually consist of electrical generators. In this first step, primary sources of energy such as coal, nuclear, wind, gas, solar, hydro are used.

The energy produced in the first step is converted from low to high voltage so that it can be easily tr-

ansported in bulk throughout long distances in transmission lines. However, before electricity can be used in a home, the high voltage electricity must pass through a substation near the location it is needed. At the substation, it is converted into low voltage electricity which can then be distributed into homes. This part of the grid can be seen through the distribution lines running throughout neighborhoods.

The third part of the energy grid is the load or the retailers who buy large amounts of electricity from generators and sells it to individual home…and then of course gives you a bill after.

The electrical grid is a complex network but it is one of the most important parts of society. With new technology and environmental concerns, new ways of using and converting energy are being thought of every day.

The Smart Grid, How It Works, and Pros/Cons

However, a more modern and efficient power distribution grid is the Smart Grid. As new technology has come out, they have found a way to make the distribution of electricity more efficient by using computer-processing and automation technology.

In this new technology advanced system, customers can now keep track of their homes by busing their smartphones or being more environmentally friendly with solar panels.

Pros:

-less blackouts

-ability to detect damages and repair them

-better air quality

-more efficient power

-lower greenhouse gas emissions

-can connect to smartphones for easier use

-eliminate blackouts

-advanced monitoring

-hybrid or electric cars can store energy and then energy can be sold

 

 

Cons:

-it would cost an estimated 13 billion to 50 billion to reconstruct the whole grid

-not all parts of the world can afford it

-increase risk of breaching into system

-shorter life span

-less reliable

 

References:

http://theconversation.com/explainer-how-does-the-electricity-grid-work-19289

http://www.eesi.org/briefings/view/electric-transmission-101-how-the-grid-works

http://electrical-systems-lighting.knoji.com/pros-and-cons-of-the-smart-grid/

https://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid

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