Not soon after President Obama was elected in 2009 he presented a plan that included loaning billions of dollars to “green” energy companies. The intentions behind this plan was to help the U.S. move in the direction of being less dependent upon fossil fuels. Additionally, the thought was that these “green” energy companies would also provide jobs for Americans. It seems like a good idea right…?

Well in theory, yes! But, here is what actually unfolded that is refered to as the Solyndra Scandal. Solyndra was a company that produced solar-panels and they receives $535 million of this billion dollar loan. They were loaned this money in March of 2009 and by the end of August, that same year, they were filing for bankrupcy and abruptly stopped all of their manufacturing of panels!

Above is a picture of the President touring the Solyndra plant in California.

After the company’s downward spiral many investigations were conducted by Federal agencies and The House of Energy and Commerce Committee. The Obama administration was largley criticized for failing to see that the company was expereincing problems before they even recieved the loan. Also, one of the main financial backers of Solyndra was found to have had ties to the Obama campaign; this just added to the scandal.

It appears that investigations are still underway and the public is not yet fully aware of everything that transpired. In September, 2011 federal agents went to the houses of Solyndra’s CEO and founder to look at files and documents they had in their possession.  Although this whole situation seems like a huge failure because it essentailly wasted a significant amount of tax payer’s money the President and his administration say that the economy and companies in general are very unpredictable. They go on to atest that the failure of one company should not deter the U.S. from trying to become less dependent on fossil fuels and more environmetnally friendly. This seems like a fair statement but after all that occured surrounding Solyndra I think it is going to take a lot more than just words to have the American people trust, and be on board with another “green” plan anytime soon.

References:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/solyndra-scandal-timeline/

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/abc-news-investigations-year-solyndra-scandal/story?id=15199603#.T0e0GyOa1uU

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904836104576558763644374614.html

On 2/10 in class we completed the week 4 Generator Experiment. For this experiment we were using Lego Mindstorm along with a hand generator and voltage probe.
This is what the set up was like:

And here is an actual picture of it:

We learned that inside of the generator was a magnet and coil mechanism that when shaken generated power. So, once we had everything set up and connected we were ready to begin running our 5 separate tests. For each test we had to start Labview for 30 seconds, shake the generator, and count the number of shakes. As I said, we did this 5 separate times. The first time we didn’t shake the generator at all and each time after that we increased the shaking speed. 

After all of our tests had been executed we were able to transfer this data into excel. For each test there were 30 seperate voltages recorded. For each of these we added them togather and squared them giving us one number to work with for each of the 5 test trials.

The data looked like this:

We also made a graph of this data:

 As you can see the faster we shook the hand held genrator the higher the voltage.

This lab was important because it teaches us that there are alternative ways to produce energy that are much more environmentally friendly. Maybe in the future we will all have hand held generators that we can power electornics like our cell phones and computers with!

Again we were working with our Lego robots in class but this time they looked a little bit different (see picture below).

During this experiment, we were using our robot mechanisms to lift up a set of weights. The key things to know about this experiment is that the force was controlled by the robots. This is what enabled them to lift the mass which was the weights. Additionally, we found after numerous tests that as the mass or the weights increased the acceleration, or the time it took them to reach the top of the pulley system decreased.

We ran a test for all of the different weights. The different weights were what we had to plug into the labview panel measured in kilograms. After each of the tests were run the data was computed for us by the program. After all of the tests we were able to import all of this data into an excel spreadsheet. Look below to see the data:

As you can see we ran 12 separate tests. The data helped us to discover the trend that was mentioned before, how as the mass of the weights increased the acceleration decreased. We created a graph to show this relationship:

The next and final step in the lab was to calculate the potential energy for each of the tests. The formula we were given for potential energy is as follows:

mgh (potential energy)=m(mass) x a(acceleration) x h(height)

The mass was always 9.8m

and the height of the pulley system was always .22m

Therefore for example, for test 1 the mass of the weights was equal to .25kg so we computed:

.25kg x 9.8m x .22m

and came out with .539 being the potential energy for this test.

Fuel economy has become a major concern over the past few years. There are many reasons why but mainly it is because of the ever rising gas prices and the growing concern over global warming. As we know, carbon dioxide contributes to the rise in Earth’s temperature. One of the contributors to the high Co2 levels is what is emitted from our vehicles (the transportation sector). Additionally, the US is very dependent on foreign oil and because of this dependence we have to pay whatever the market price is for gasoline because we have no other choice…or do we?

This image depicts how much energy is lost and from where when it comes to a vehicle.

The automobile industry has been making strides in trying to develop more fuel efficient cars.  One of these developments being the Hybrid vehicle. Hybrids use both traditional gas engines in combination with electric motors improving upon the vehicles overall fuel economy. One of the many cool features of a Hybrid car is the automatic start/shutoff. The car’s engine shuts off when it is stopped and comes back on when the gas is pressed. This is just one way that the car saves on energy.

Below is a simple diagram of a Hybrid Vehicle.

In addition to the Hybrid the automobile industry has also developed electrical vehicles which are powered by rechargeable batteries. These cars emit NO tailpipe pollutants into the air. With this plus, there are some downfalls to the electric car which may account for why they are not very popular. For one, the battery is very expensive and it is inconvenient for the driver  to have to keep recharging the battery. Some might say that this is a small price to pay for saving our planet but others may disagree when they are in a hurry to pick up their child from soccer practice and the car still has an hour left to charge!

Lastly, alternative fuel vehicles are an option. These cars use fuels other than gasoline to power them. Although this helps with our dependence on foreign oil these alternative fuels still pollute the air and contribute to the rise in temperature.

Below is a chart from Consumer Reports Feb. 2012 that lists the top fuel efficient cars.

In conclusion, I think that it is a step in the right direction that the automobile companies are developing more fuel efficient cars. This is because, there are so many people on this Earth and many of these people drive cars on a daily basis. This fact greatly contributes to green house gas emissions and in turn, global warming. As I have stated in previous entries it is definitely going to take more than a few people driving Hybrid cars to end global warming; it is going to take a more drastic collaborative effort. I also, think that the automobile industry should continue to make advances because they have done great things and I will be interested to see what they will be able to do in the future.

References:

www.fueleconomy.gov/

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/buying-advice/most-fuelefficient-cars/overview/index.htm

http://www.epa.gov/fueleconomy/