(EarthTimes)

What is hydrofracking? Hydrofracking uses significantly more water than conventional drilling, as well as a “slick water” mixture that is pumped into the shale to fracture the rock and release the gas. Second, there is an increased potential for toxicity and its long-term impacts. Finally, there is the environmental impacts of the drilling: surface and subterranean damage including forestland loss, multiple well sites, groundwater and surface water contamination, habitat and species disturbance, and likely an increased number of access roads to the well sites. (Peace Council)

The Marcellus Shale which stretches 104,000 square miles across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and upstate New York, is America’s largest source of natural gas, hydraulic fracturing has been used to release and capture the shale gas for energy consumption. Avner Vengosh is a professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke. Vengosh stated his concern with hydrofracking by saying, “the amount of radioactivity that has accumulated in the river sediments exceeds the thresholds for safe disposal of radioactive materials.” (ENN)

Overall, hydrofracking seems to carry more negatives than positives with it: contamination of ground water, methane pollution, air pollution toxic chemicals, explosions, excess waste, earthquakes, etc. Mechanically, hydrofracking is helpful and you are able to get what you want more efficiently, but due to the environmental risks and safety risks that come with hydrofracking, it is just a bad idea.

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake struck in the area of Fukushima and caused a 15-meter tsunami to disable the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors. All three reactors mostly melted within the first three days. Cooling the reactors was the primary task, but also they had to work to prevent radioactive materials from spilling out. (World Nuclear)

The dangers to people and the environment are obvious, but a nuclear meltdown also presents a serious threat on the economy. The public ends up having to pay for the mess through taxes and other charges, whereas, the companies who had originally been funding these reactors essentially escaped any financial responsibilities at all. (Greenpeace)

(propublica)

Regardless of the incident in Fukushima, Japan still wants to continue to use nuclear energy. A Japanese government panel decided that nuclear power would be a very important factor in their new energy plan going forward. The panel states, “”Nuclear power should continue to be used on the condition that its safety is ensured, and it is an important and basic power source that supports the stability of Japan’s energy supply and demand structure.” (Global Post)

(Energy.gov)

Practically every American now has a “smart” phone, and what that means is essentially that the phone has a computer built in to it. Well, “smart” grid technology means “computerizing” the electricity grid. It communicates between the device being powered and the grid itself. The “grid” amounts to the networks that carry electricity from the plants where it is generated to consumers. The grid includes wires, substations, transformers, switches and much more. (Energy.gov)

(Smartgrid.com)

The Smart Grid automatically improves energy usage, and minimizes waste while delivering real-time information to both consumers and providers. Advocates of the Smart Grid believe that it will open up new markets for large and small scale alternative energy producers like solar, wind and bio-fuels by decentralizing generation. (SmartMeters)

As far as environmental concerns go, smart grid technology will help to reduce our carbon footprint and it will give consumers more choices on how they use their energy. Smart grid technology makes energy use more efficient and more reliable. (PGE)

We utilize all sorts of batteries throughout our everyday lives. Cars, cellphones, and digital watches are all powered by some sort of a battery. But, we were curious what kind of basic principles create a “battery.” A battery is a container that consists of one or more cells that produce an electrochemical reaction when connected to a device.
The experiment we chose was to create a battery out of fruits (lemons, limes, oranges, bananas) using graphite/carbon as the constant element and switching out various conductive metals (zinc, copper, iron) as the second element. We hypothesized that the lemon would have the highest pH level and thus would generate the highest amount of voltage. We utilized a voltage meter to measure the voltage of each fruit/metal combination.

Our Results:

As shown in the chart above, we were wrong with our hypothesis. Surprisingly, the orange yielded the highest voltage when paired with a galvanized nail, but all the fruits we tried, even the banana, yielded some level of voltage showing that you can create a battery (though a weak one) out of fruits and conductors.

(SolarPower.com)

Solar power is created when sunlight hits solar panels and these solar panels convert the sunlight into usable energy. (EDF Energy) Solar power makes sense to eliminate the use of harmful materials to power the country, but as with all innovations in energy, the cost is throwing off some investors. For others, they see the benefits in solar energy for consumers and themselves.

Google is one of these companies. Google has agreed to invest $103 million in another solar power plant in California that will send electricity to San Diego Gas & Electric when completed in 2014. Google figures that if they can provide a cleaner energy source to consumers this can benefit them in a way. Many people in California that are using Google’s search engine and other products may be powered by Google themselves. (Forbes) I see this as positive branding for Google in the public eye. I think it makes sense and they have the money to do it.

The benefits of solar energy are blatant. We have to come to agreements with untrusted outside sources for fossil fuel imports and these fossil fuels are detrimental to the environment. Though solar energy is expensive to implement across the country, it is likely that in the long run it will increase economic security to US citizens. (The Energy Collective)

Solar energy use appears to continue to increase year after year. Though many investors don’t fully believe in solar energy being financially sensible, there are still enough that do believe in it to continue the growth. Money is always the issue, but solar energy makes long-term sense which will most likely ensure that it will continue to progress in the world.

During the solar energy lab, we measured the strength of light based on the distance away from the solar panel connected to the robot. From 0 centimeters away, the light intensity was the highest as expected. As the distance increased, the light intensity increased, though we did have some strange decreases. They weren’t substantial, but they were surprising.

We then moved on to using color filters on the light to see how that would affect the intensity. All of these measurements were done from 0 centimeters away. With the lighter, more clear, colors, the light intensity was greater. Our darkest color, purple, gave us the lowest intensity.

(TheCarConnection)

A major issue for most people is the extremely high gas prices in America. Gas is becoming increasingly unaffordable to drivers and they are searching for solutions to this problem. One major tactic is to buy vehicles with better MPG (miles per gallon). People are steering clear of “gas guzzlers” and opting for more financially sensible cars.

A study released by the University of Michigan on Tuesday said that the average fuel economy on the window stickers of cars and trucks sold last month was 24.9 miles per gallon. That was nearly 5 miles per gallon better than the 20.1 mpg recorded in October 2007, when the university’s Transportation Research Institute began tracking the data (The Ledger). Car companies are striving to improve their MPG technology to draw in customers. They are fully aware that people hate digging deep into their wallets every time they put gas in their cars.

One popular advancement in vehicle technology is the hybrid car. What exactly is a hybrid car? A vehicle is a hybrid if it utilizes more than one form of onboard energy to achieve propulsion. In practice, that means a hybrid will have a traditional internal combustion engine and a fuel tank, as well as one or more electric motors and a battery pack (Edmunds). The highest selling brand of hybrid is the Toyota Prius. The newest model of Prius will get up to 55 MPG, which is incredibly high, due to its more efficient engine, more powerful electric motor-generators, and “advanced battery technology” with higher energy density (almost surely lithium-ion cells) (Green Car Reports).

Cars with high fuel efficiency are also rather affordable. Smart Cars, which get up to around 34 MPG, can be bought for a little over $12,000.00 saving you money at the pump and at the dealership. The sale of Smart Cars continues to increase as oil prices continue to increase. Even with their small size (slightly over eight feet long and less than five feet wide) they have received excellent safety ratings (About).

All technical difficulties aside from the first attempt at this, we finally got the robot running. Using the program on the computer we were able to calculate the exact margin of error between a physical measurement of distance versus the computers calculation using the formula posted below. By finding the circumference of the wheel, the speed of the robot, and the distance the robot traveled, it was simple to find this margin of error.

Wind turbines at the German offshore Riffgat power plant nine miles off the North Sea island of Bokum (Forbes) (The GWPF)

As would be expected, Germany’s goal is to achieve a modern, climate-friendly, sustainable and secure energy supply for themselves. Germany has actually stated that by law the share of renewable energies in total electricity consumption will be increased to at least 35% by 2020. By no later than 2050, that share is expected to grow to at least 80%. In 2020, the share of renewable energies in heating is to reach 14%.(BMU)

A large problem with moving from primarily nuclear energy to green energy is the cost. German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier sees that every little thing will help. When it comes to cooking, he wants people to avoid preheating and rely more on residual heat. He stated that people can lower brightness and contrast on their televisions to save money on their electric bill. Germany will face an increase in the renewable energy surcharge in efforts to try and move towards green energy. The government predicts that the renewable energy surcharge added to every consumer’s electricity bill will increase from 5.3 cents today to between 6.2 and 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour — a 20-percent price hike. (Spiegel)

Money seems to be the primary issue in Germany’s push towards green energy. To gain funding for huge projects is extremely difficult and you have to manage that as best you can. A great idea is one thing, but being able to execute and use your great idea is another. There has been a large wind farm constructed nine miles off the North Sea island of Bokum. The wind turbines there are, believe it or not, currently being powered by fossil-fueled generators. They need to be in motion in order to avoid corrosion from the salt in the air. They can’t implement a power line to the turbines yet as originally planned due to lack of financial assistance. Investors don’t trust the project. (Forbes)

All in all, Germany seems to be making a serious push towards green energy, but is hitting the expected bumps in the road. Money is a necessity when trying to pull off a complete transition in energy production and it comes slowly, if at all. When presented, the projects are not clear and concrete enough to attract investors. People are scared to throw their money at something that they feel they don’t necessarily need. It seems as if Germany is moving in the right direction, but it is clearly going to be a slow process with nothing set in stone.