Last week in class we enjoyed a presentation by Mr. Tom
Vales. He is an inventor, scientist, and Suffolk University Professor. Mr.
Vales brought with him many cool gadgets and performed demonstrations of these
for our class where we got to see actual science and innovation in action!

The first thing that Mr. Vales shared with us was called the
Peltier Device.  This is depicted below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This device looks almost like a fan and runs simply because
one cup has hot water and the other has cold.

Next up was the Sterling Engine aka the hot air engine. This was invented by Reverend
Sterling in 1816 for steam engines. This device was also used in submarines because
it served as a quiet power source. Mr. Vales also shared that in Maine the
Sterling Engine is even used to generate energy for some parts of the state.
When used as an energy source it is 80% efficient which is remarkable. This
device runs on a temperature differential and as  you can see is very handy and versatile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Vales also talked about the traditional BBQ lighter and
how it is a mechanism composed of quartz crystal and 2 wires. It is actually
called the Piezoelectric BBQ lighter so you can share that tidbit with all of
your friends and family that at your next cookout!
Another interesting demonstration was  seeing the Mendocino Motor in action. It is
basically a floating magnet that’s shaft sits on a magnetic field. When light
shines on the device it will spin. Mr. Vales shared with us that although many
say that this device has no real practical use or function it actually does
because it is a fantastic teaching tool to teach about solar energy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final demonstration, and my personal favorite was the
Tesla Coil. This device is what gave us the power grid so it is a pretty
profound invention. This was just a small Tesla coil but they can be extremely
large as well. All the coil is, is bent copper magnet wire around a hollow
bucket which is connected to on oscillator. One neat thing about the energy
given off by the coil is that if something is held up to the spark by a person
they will not get shocked. This is because the energy can’t effect the skin
because it does not run through it just over it. But, if you were to touch the
actual spark with your hand you would get burned! Mr. Vales held objects like a
glass tube filled with neon and nuclear vapor up to the spark coming out of the
coil and it would light up. I really liked when he help up the plasma dome to
the coil and this demonstration is depicted below:

 

 

 

 

 

The Indian Point nuclear plant is located in Buchanan, New
York. The first reactor at the plant was built run in 1962 and since then the
plant has been the main source of electricity for NYC and the suburbs around
it. Recently however, there have been a lot of problems at the plant which has
caused it to come under fit; now there is a great debate on whether or not the
plant should remain open. Next I will outline for you the pros and cons of
shutting down Indian Point nuclear plant.

Pros:

– Shutting down the plant would mean the state would be
forced to come up with new ways to provide energy to its inhabitants. This
would mean that energy policy would change and hopefully for the better; where
more earth friendly and sustainable sources would be put into practice.

-Nuclear plants can be very dangerous as illustrated by the
Fukishima disaster in Japan (see previous blog post)

-It is unrealistic to believe that if there was some type of
disaster where the area around the plant had to be evacuated that individuals
would be able to in a safe and timely manner without any problems occurring.
Therefore if the plant were to be shutdown this type of situation could be
avoided.

-If the plant could feasibly be replaced with renewable energy
sources such as solar or wind power plants this would be greatly beneficial for
the environment.

Cons:

-Because the plant supplies such a large amount of energy;
2,000 megawatts to 25% of NYC and the surrounding county an alternative plan
would take years to come up with.

-Implementing a replacement method would be very difficult
and expensive.

-There would be a lot more power failures experienced by New
Yorkers if the plant were to be shutdown.

-Dismantling reactors is a tough job and rather expensive.
This is because they are made up of huge parts and radioactive material as well.
It is estimated that the cost to decommission only one reactor would be a cost
of 4 million to 1 billion dollars.

-Radioactive contamination that may occur from the
dismantling of the reactors could pose a threat in safety to those in the area.

-The plant could be replaced with other controversial power
supply options like a natural gas plant which has its own list of environmental
cons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/indian_point_nuclear_power_plant_ny/index.html

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/surviving-without-indian-point-is-it-doable/

2/01/13/nyregion/vision-for-cheap-power-even-if-indian-point-nuclear-plant-is-closed.html?_r=1&ref=atomicenergy

We are rather fortunate that we are living and going to
school in a place like Boston where we have all of these amazing learning tools
right around the corner from us. A prime example of this is how MIT is just one
T-stop and short walk away from us. I am really glad that our class got the
chance to go on the MIT Fusion Lab Tour because I learned and saw things that I
never had before.

The tour started with us learning a little background
information on what fusion actually is; which before this I really had no clue!
Since a young age I was taught that there are three states that matter can be
found in; a solid, liquid, and gas. Leave it to an MIT student to teach me that
there is a fourth state of matter, PLASMA. Matter changes from one state to the
next by a process of heat/energy being added to it so, when heat/ energy is
added to gaseous matter it turns into plasma. Plasma is what is manipulated in
a fusion reaction and that is why it is so important.

 

 

 

 

 

We know that the process of fusion occurs naturally in the
sun and stars. This process is actually what keeps these celestial bodies lit
up. By studying these natural fusion processes scientists have been working tirelessly
to recreate the same thing in a lab setting. This is what the MIT Fusion Lab is doing.

MIT’s most remarkable device is Alcator C-mod which is a tokamak.
Tokamak in Russian means toroidal magnetic chamber. This device confines plasma
in a doughnut shape and operated with a really strong magnetic field. At the
MIT Fusion Lab they work with this device in the hopes of containing nuclear
power; the same process as aforementioned that powers our sun and stars. Being
able to do this would be hugely beneficial because fusion produces very little
waste and would provide a nearly limitless supply of energy. This would be a
great direction for the world to move in because it would help us with many of
the current problems we are dealing with when it comes to sustainability and
global warming.

Here are some pictures I took while the tour:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Above is a picture of the control room which would got to spend a lot of time in)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Natural gas hydraulic fracturing or hydrofracking for short, is an alternative method of extracting natural gas from the Earth’s crust. The way that hydrofracking works is that a water and chemical mixture are shot down a well at very high pressures. This process creates “fractures” to release the desired natural gas from the rocks.

Many people are strongly apposed to hydrofracking due to the fact that this method of natural gas extraction requires a lot of water. The problem lies in where all of this water is going to come from and where it is going to go once it has been used? The fear is that the water in close proximity of hydrofracking operations becomes contaminated with toxic chemicals that are very harmful to humans. This is why communities protest against hydrofracking and why it is such a controversial issue. 

New York has been at the very center of this hydrofracking controversy. . The area that is of most concern is called, Marcellus Shale and is land that that the gas companies desperately want to take over for their fracking operations. On February 22, 2012 a NY state judge ruled that Individual towns have the right to decide if they will allow hydrofracking or not. This is a win for environmentalist and those living in NY. On the other hand, it enrages the drillers. This is an ongoing battle and it will be interesting to see what transpires in the months and years to come. 

Resources: 
http://www.citizenscampaign.org/campaigns/hydro-fracking.asp
http://www.safewatermovement.org/what-is-hydrofracking/

Last week on 2/17 we said goodbye to our robots and learned all about solar panels. We got the opportunity to conduct a “Solar Cell Experiment” and in this post I will share with you what my partner and I did, and the data we collected, so you can learn a little about solar cells as well!

The procedure of this experiment was to:

(1) Measure solar cell voltages (aka the light intensity) without any light

(2) Repeat the measurements for the solar cell being placed at different distances from the light source

(3) And lastly, to measure the cell voltage at a fixed distance for 4 different colored filters

 

Below is a diagram of the setup of the experiment:

 

So, once we were all set up we began running the test. As the procedure states we first ran a trial where no light was shining on the cell so we could get an idea of what the baseline reading would be. All of the data was saved for us in the Labview program as usual and we were then able to open it up in excel and do the necessary computing. Next, we conducted 5 additional tests placing the cell at varying distances from the light sources (which was like a fancy flashlight).

The data averages for these trials are depicted below:

Distance	Volts
0	-0.033935
1	0.44719
5	0.243193
10	0.2804
20	0.018668
30	-0.02752

As you can see the trend of this data was that as the distance of the cell from the light source decreased that voltages recorded increased.

After we were done with this preliminary part of the experiment we moved on to using the 4 different color filters. Alex and I chose to use the light pink, hot pink, yellow, orange, and blue filters at the fixed distance of 5 cm from the light source.

These data averages are as follows:

color volts blue 0.22908 orange 0.265004 yellow 0.257306 hot pink 0.273985 light pink 0.262438
As you can see when we used the hot pink filter, we generated the most voltage while when we used the blue, we generated the least. This finding goes against what I would think the results would have presented because aren’t the darkest colors supposed to attract the most light? Isn’t that why we are are told not to wear black in the summer time? I would think that when we used no filter the most volts would have been generated followed by the yellow filter because that would have been the lightest color. Unless our data was not completely correct I am not quite sure what conclusions I can draw from this.