During our team brainstorming, we came across plenty ideas. However, we all agreed that what ever we would choose to do it should be plain, simple and really interesting for the students to try. Also, since our experiment has to be related to a energy and sustainability concept as how to we learned in class, in that case one of our team members had a great idea of doing some type of experiment related to green houses.
Since greenhouses are becoming more and more popular in todays century, specially since it saves so much energy there are so many other unique things to them that we don’t know about, and it will be a great way to show the class how much energy can be saved and or consumed in a regular home, even though creating a greenhouse will be much more expensive than a regular home. In that case, we thought about building either a lego small house or wood house and installing the light bulbs and windows to it, to show the concept of energy efficiency.
However, since the special unique features of a unique home include clear walls and cealines. Also within our experiment we talked about using green energy efficient light bulbs that help consume much less energy than regular light bulbs.
Since this is just a brainstorming session, ones we meet and clearly talk about how were actually going to pull this of, our concept of this experiment will be much clear later on.
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April 12, 2013
Why is demand response necessary?
Since the power grid supplies only the electricity we ask for, one way to decrease the demand load is demand response.
In broad terms, demand response programs give us — residential, commercial and industrial consumers the ability to voluntarily trim our electricity usage at specific times of the day (such as peak hours) during high electricity prices, or during emergencies (such as preventing a blackout).
When demand is high and supply is short, power interruptions such as power outages can sometimes be the result. But by building enough power plants to satisfy every possible supply and demand scenario is one possibility, but the cost and environmental impact of that would be huge.
Demand response programs are made to be both fiscally and environmentally responsible ways to respond to occasional and temporary peak demand periods.
The programs offer incentives to businesses that volunteer and participate by temporarily reducing their electricity use when demand could outpace supply.
However, when we have strong storms and heat waves or other natural disasters, these can affect any states supply and demand for electricity.
As it exists now, the energy industry faces a myriad of infrastructure issues. To keep up with the load demand and its expected rise, the industry needs to relieve the increased stress on the grid and build new power plants and transmission power lines while working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the skyrocketing costs of energy.
Direct demand response technology
One of the most exciting models and example of demand response is the smart grid and its connection to smart buildings.
A smart grid is the 21st century version of the current grid. Today’s grid is one-way only: You turn on the t.v and it brings the power. A smart grid would be a two-way communication system between provider and consumer.
The structure of the grid is often described as similar to the Internet.
In the same way every computer that accesses the Internet has an Internet address, the smart grid would have a web of access points that could be identified and contacted.
Through these contact points, the grid would automate the flow of electricity needed, identify and isolate problems; it would also be able to handle uneven supplies of energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar power.
Currently, demand response programs are administered by California’s three regulated investor-owned utilities: PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E.
Most of the utility demand response programs target large commercial and industrial customers that are equipped with meters that are capable of measuring and reporting energy usage in one hour intervals or less.
Customers without an interval meter (essentially residential and small commercial customers) will eventually be able to participate in demand response programs as utilities’ proposals for Advanced Metering make their way through the regulatory approval and implementation processes.
The government agrees that the U.S. needs a real-time demand response infrastructure to optimally manage and link electric supply- and demand-side systems.
This Smart Grid infrastructure must be compatible with requirements of electric system grid operators and electric utility companies while serving the loads and needs of electricity customers.
Therefore, the Demand Response Research Center plans and conducts multi-disciplinary research to advance demand response within Smart Grid infrastructures in California, the nation, and abroad.
Works Cited
http://www.pjm.com/markets-and-operations/demand-response.aspx
http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/energysavingsrebates/demandresponse/
http://drrc.lbl.gov/
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April 4, 2013
The trip to the Museum of Science in Boston was based of learning more about wind and solar energy. However, overall the museum had great graphics and so much important information that can help anyone understand and learn more about solar and wind energy. This blog will give you a broader idea of what we saw and what we learned in the museum.
The Museum Wind lab
This is an experiment/laboratory that is designed to monitor local wind conditions and wind power generation data for each of the Museum’s roof-mpunted wind turbines. This laboratory experiment showed a screen with the current conditions and the historical information that was recorded ever since the wind turbines were installed.
The museum had plenty people who have made wind turbines and bellow there are 2 examples.
1. The Southwest Sky-stream 3.7 : This turbine could generate power for nineteen 15-watt energy efficient light bulbs at the Museum for one year.
Produced by: Southwest Windpower, Inc.
Rotor Diameter: 12ft
Tower Height:33 ft
Weight:179 lbs
Cut- in Wind Speed: 8mph
Maximum Rated Power: 1.9 kW
Annual Maximum Power: 16,644 kWh
2. Swift Rooftop Wind Energy System: This turbine could generate power for fifteen 15-watt energy efficient light bulbs at the Museum for one year.
Produced by: Renewable Devices
Rotor Diameter: 7 ft
Tower Height:9 ft
Weight: 209 lbs
Cut-in Wind Speed Power: 7.5 mph
Maximum Rated Power: 1.5 kW
Annual Maximum Power: 13,140 kWh
Storing Energy
Beacon Power Corporatio, Tyngsboro, MA
The Beacon Power Corporation magnetic flywheel system transforms electricity into mechanical energy which is easier to store. The rotating core stores energy in its spin. When power plants produce more electricity that consumers need, the excess makes the flywheel spin faster. When consumers require more electricity, the spinning motor becomes an electrical generator, adding electricity back to the grid.
Its parts involve
– A vacuum chamber: where the vacuum surrounds the flywheel to reduce friction, enabling the flywheel to spin at high speed.
– Carbon & glass fiver rim: The outer rim of the flywheel is made of alternating layers of glass.
– Magnetic bearing: The flywheel levitates on magnets, further reducing friction.
– Combination of the motor and the generator: The motor mode uses electricity to increase the rotation speed. In generator mode, it converts the rotation back into electricity, slowing the flywheel down.
Energy Lost & Found
Levant Power, Cambridge, MA
This exhibit explains the matter of lost energy, in this example when cars hit potholes, the up- and- down motion of the care wastes energy.
The team at Levant Power designed a new shock absorber that recovers this energy and sends it back into a cars system . Levant’s design is based on a dynamic damping system that translates vertical motion in a car’s suspension system into useful electricity power.
A picture bellow shows an example of the shock absorber from the one that was in the museum exhibit.
It has a power connector, an integrated piston head, a Hydraulic fluid, a floating piston and a compresses nitrogen.
Solar collector shapes
This exhibit was really interesting,it showed and explained how solar collectors can be different shapes and sizes, but they all use mirrors to concentrate and intensify the Sun’s energy.
The museum had three different small examples of solar collectors; A tower, a trough and a parabolic dish.
Tower
Trough
Parabolic dish
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April 4, 2013
High Frequency Electricity
This experiment was done by science prof Tom Vales. He spoke and demonstrated different objects such as the sterling engine, Peltier Junction and the Mendocino motor.
1. The Stirling Engine
Is 80% efficient. Is a hot air engine and it works by having hot air or other gases. It uses a displacer, and is set at different temperature levels so there could be a net conversion of heat energy so it can mechanically work.
How it works?
In this case Tom Vales used one carton cup, has 2 plates, a upper plate, and a lower plate. It’s 200 years old. Its sitting on a cup of hot water and it has a 4 degree Celsius.
The bellow picture is an example of a stirling engine, although it is not based of two of such as Tom Vales used.
2. The Peltier
The Peltier effect was a discovery Jean Charles Athanase Peltier made when he was investigating electricity.
He joined copper wire and bismuth wire together and connected them to each other, then to a battery. When he switched the battery on, one of the junctions of the two wires got hot, while the other junction got cold.
In this experiment by Tom Vales, Tom used 2 cups and two metal tags. One piece of metal is in cold water and are piece of metal in hot water. It generates a sendi-cunducted type of energy.
The biggest use for this for example is in a computer, but it gets severely hot.
3. Mendocino Motor:
The person who invented this was from Mendancine California. The motor consists of a four-side rotor block in the middle of a shaft. The rotor block has two sets of windings and solar cell attached to each side.
The shaft is positioned horizontally and has a magnet at each end.
There is an additional magnet that sits under the rotor block and provides a magnetic field for the rotor.
When light strikes one of the solar cells, it generates an electric current thus energizing one of the rotor windings.
This produces a magnetic field, which interacts with the field of the magnet under the rotor. This interaction causes the rotor to turn.
The light hits the solar cell and hits the light and magnet. It turns 90 Celsius and it floats.
There’s notification, it has a use as a teaching tool, and you have solar energy, magnets. They can be done as big as you want.
4. Piezo Electic Effect
This is a type of electric motor based upon the change in shape of a piezoelectric material when an electric field is applied.
The elongation in a single plane is used to make a series of stretches and position holds.
There are small piece of small crystals that has wires, and has a button.
It will make high voltages in the other direction. It uses as a radiogram meter in which it generates sparks.
Overall, Tom Vales experiment where grate, such an amazing way of experiencing how we can create electicity in so many different ways.
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March 21, 2013
Fukushima Daiichi was one of the one of the largest earthquakes in the recorded history of the world occurred on the east coast of northern Japan March 11 2011. The Great East Japan Earthquake of magnitude was of 9.0 at 2.46 pm.
This earthquake also generated a major tsunami, causing nearly 20,000 deaths. Electricity, gas and water supplies, telecommunications, and railway service were all severely disrupted and in many cases completely shut down. These disruptions severely affected the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing a loss of all on-site and off-site power and a release of radioactive materials from the reactors.
Facts
* All three cores largely melted in the first three days.
* The accident was rated 7 on the INES scale, due to high radioactive releases in the first few days.
* After two weeks the three reactors (units 1-3) were stable with water addition but no proper heat sink for removal of decay heat from fuel. By July they were being cooled with recycled water from the new treatment plant. Reactor temperatures had fallen to below 80ºC at the end of October, and official ‘cold shutdown condition’ was announced in mid December.
* Apart from cooling, the basic ongoing task was to prevent release of radioactive materials, particularly in contaminated water leaked from the three units.
* There have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear accident, but over 100,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes to ensure this.
Now, Japan is about to embark on a cleanup that could cost at least $100bn – on top of the cost of compensating evacuees and decontaminating their abandoned homes.
Fukushima Daiichi’s manager, Takeshi Takahashi, conceded that decommissioning the plant could take 30 to 40 years.
The leadership of the American Nuclear Society commissioned the American Nuclear Society Special Committee on Fukushima to provide a clear and concise explanation of what happened during the Fukushima Daiichi accident, and offer recommendations based on lessons learned from their study of the event.
By the end of this year, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) says it will begin removing fuel assemblies from the reactor and placing them in a nearby cooling pool, where they will remain for four years before being stored in dry casks in a purpose-built facility on higher ground.In total, workers will have to extract more than 11,000 new and used fuel assemblies from seven badly damaged storage pools.
Work to remove melted fuel won’t begin until 2021, and the entire decommissioning project is expected to take up to 40 years.
Works Cited
http://fukushima.ans.org/
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant
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March 6, 2013
Their Proven Performance/ Technology and Products
As of today, Solyndra’s cylindrical design offers proven reliability and superior performance. Each panel is made up of 40 individual modules, wired in parallel for high current, which capture sunlight across a 360-degree photovoltaic surface capable of converting direct, diffuse and reflected sunlight into electricity. Using innovative cylindrical copper indium gallium dieseline (CIGS modules) and thin-film technology.
Solyndra systems are designed to be able to provide the lowest system installation costs on a per watt basis for the commercial rooftop market. More than 1000 Solyndra systems are installed around the world, representing nearly 100 Megawatts.
Lightweight: Low Distributed Load of 2.8 lbs. per Square Foot
The Solyndra system is extremely lightweight and modules are spaced within the panel frame offering unique airflow properties. This eliminates the need for expensive mounting hardware and ballast. The low roof weight is ideal for older buildings and “value-engineered buildings” not designed to carry a heavy rooftop load, and often Solyndra is the only solar solution that works for these installations.
“Solyndra Scandal”. What went wrong?
President Obama praised the company, Solyndra, for its advanced technology during a visit in 2010.
However, back in 2011, Solyndra said its business had run into trouble because of difficult global business conditions, including slowing demand for solar panels, and stiff competition.
Solyndra filed a bankruptcy protection on August 31 2011, laying off 1,100 employees, and shutting down all its operations and manufacturing.
In the case of Solyndra, some experts said that regardless of the competition, the company’s unique designs, which were expensive to manufacture, were to blame for its failure.
The government calculated premiums for the guarantees, essentially a loan fee based on the risk of default, but it picks up the cost of the premiums for the companies in the subsidy program. By that yardstick, it spent $2.4 billion in credit subsidies for the program.
Solyndra’s troubles have been growing for some time. Republican budget-cutters in Congress have viewed it as a model of poor government investment.
Solyndra was promised loans of up to $535 million under a guarantee program authorized by Congress as part of the stimulus package. The Energy Department has made more than 40 promises of guarantees, of which Solyndra was the first. It has committed $18 billion in guarantees and expects to allocate several billion dollars more by the time the program finishes at the end of September.
However, on September 2011, Soyndr was deeply investigated by the FBI. More importantly, federal agents visited the homes of the founder of Sylandra and the company’s CEO, they examined computer files and documents.
Policymakers absolutely must study what went wrong at Solyndra in business terms, but it is also imperative that they not overlook the strengths and opportunities of the emerging “clean” economy, lest America fall further behind in this crucial sector of the global economy.
Works Cited
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-muro/solyndra-solar-bankruptcy-solar-power-_b_947046.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/business/energy-environment/solyndra-solar-firm-aided-by-federal-loans-shuts-doors.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.solyndra.com/technology-products/
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February 28, 2013
Creating Voltage
In this experiment we used the following objects; one generator, (magnet that moves back and forth inside a coil of wire), one voltage probe (to measure voltage), one NXT adaptor, Labview VI and an excel sheet to organize all of our data into a scatter graph.
The point of this lab is to show how to create electricity, by shaking the flashlight. If you don’t shake it, would not create any voltage. The flashlight has wires attached that are sticking out, and we connect it to the voltage probe, that is connected to the NXT and the NXT is connected to the computer with an usb cord. The more the magnetic feels the more electricity we created.
First we start by using the LabView program, it waits one second to take a data. For 30 seconds it will record a voltage.
We shack the flashlight, and the voltages are automatically recorded in the Labview file and in the excel file. We do this 4 times and once we start shaking it we start creating energy, we have to keep track of how many times we shack it. However, some voltages are negative and some are positive, and that depends on the magnetic energy whether it decreases or increases.
We first shacked it 32 times and it created 12 voltages. Then, we shacked it 35 times and it created 77 voltages. The third time we shacked it 46 time and it created 89 voltages and the fourth time we shacked it 98 times at a really fast speed and it created a number of 80 voltages.
We record the amount of voltages made in the excel sheet. We added all of the numbers and then we squared all the voltages in the excel file and then we sum them up and that gave us an idea of how much electricity we created.
The scatter graph shows that the more shakes the greater voltages are. The x axis shows the number of shakes, and the y axis shows the voltage made. The line illustrates the more of number of shakes the greater we can see it increases.
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February 22, 2013
Force and Energy, Velocity and Acceleration, and power
In this lab experiment we used the Lego Windstorm motor to lift weights with a pulley. We used this, to explore Newton’s 2nd Law, the law of conservation of energy, velocity and acceleration and power.
The point of the experiment is to find the speed, acceleration, time and the amount of battery discharge that the robot uses.
By setting the power level of the motor, this will set the toque on the motor wheel which will result in a particular force used to lift the masses. The higher the power level, the greater the force will be.
To find this data we use two methods, by doing it a few times with the power level fixed but changing the mass and by changing the power and then keeping the mass constant.
1.
Exploring Newtons’s 2nd law, F=ma, BY KEEPING THE power level fixed and changing the mass. We ran it 3 times.
In this case the power level is stated in %, so it was fixed at 75%.
And yes the acceleration varies with the power level. We can see in the graph bellow because if the power level decreases the mass increases.
Power level % Mass (kg)
75 0.25
75 0.18
75 0.12
75 0.07
Then, we keep the mass the same and change the power level.Mass (kg)
Mass (kg) Power level %
0.07 60
0.07 45
0.07 30
0.07 20
And these are the results for acceleration that we get for each trial and they certainly change.
| 1.35.108456 |
| 39.750816 |
| 42.02937 |
| 46.967158 |
Acceleration vs Force, here I show how we use a different power level % and also get a different acceleration (RPM/s)
Power level % Acceleration RPM/s)
75 46.96716
60 29.09715
45 16.62116
30 6.525699
20 2.437297
2. We now will explore the Law of Conservation of energy by computing:
, with h as the height that the center of mass of the weights travel.
With the power level fixed, study how the battery energy drainage changes as a function of mass. Since the energy of the battery is converted to the potential energy of the masses, you would expect that the greater the masses, the greater is the battery drainage. However, the battery level reading is not that accurate, so you should repeat your measurements several times and look at the average battery drainage as a function of mass.
Mass (kg) Battery Discharge (mV)
0.25 28
0.18 56
0.12 56
0.07 14
These are the results in the scatter graph bellow.
3. Now we calculate the average power used by the motor which equals:
,
Power Level % Power= mgh/t (W)
75 0.09292694760
60 0.07127272730
45 0.055675362
30 0.034885579
20 0.021346966
The graph bellow shows the results. We also added a linear trend line with an equating and R2, the curve is exactly linear.
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February 20, 2013
In this lab experiment we used the Lego Windstorm motor to lift weights with a pulley. The point of the experiment is to find the speed, acceleration, time and the amount of battery discharge that the robot uses. By setting the power level of the motor will set the toque on the motor wheel which will result in a particular force used to lift the masses. The higher the power level, the greater the force will be. To find this data we use two methods, by doing it a few times with the power level fixed but changing the mass and by changing the power and then keeping the mass constant.
We first used Newton’s 2nd Law i.e.F= ma by keeping the power level fixed and changing the mass.
The acceleration defiantly changes with the mass, and you could see this with the results of this chart bellow.
Here we used the power constant as 75 and we used different wights (mass)
Trial #1:
Speed (RPM): 87.56
Battery Discharge(mv): -14
Mass(kg): 0.25
Time(s): 2.71
Acceleration(RPM/s): 32.34
Then we changed the power level but we left the mass the same
Speed (RPM): 91.56
Battery Discharge (mv): 97
Mass(kg) : 0.2
Power level: 75
Time:2.61
Acceleration(RPM/s): 25.03
We can see that since the mass is the same (0.2) while changing the power level in three trials 75,50 and 100. Each trial’s acceleration depends in its speed.
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February 15, 2013
Hydraulic Fracturing & Water Contamination
Hydraulic fracturing or fracking are natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.
A loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act exempts hydraulic fracturing from regulation, despite the threat to drinking water supplies. Unfortunately, Hydraulic fracturing has been linked to contaminated drinking water in communities around the country.
Slick water hydrofracking is different from conventional natural gas drilling in a couple of ways.
First, slick water 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.
What is the problem?
Slick water hydrofracking involves a process that uses 6-8 million gallons of freshwater per fracking and sand or other lightweight.
Following the injection of both the water and the propane, several chemical-based additives are used to create a more timely, efficient, and overall more economic process.
Some of the chemical additives frequently used include: diesel fuel, biocides, benzene (an additive to gasoline and industrial solvent), and hydrochloric acid.
Companies employing this method of natural gas extraction have resisted efforts to require disclosure of what chemicals and what amounts they use. In that case, only assuring us they use these chemicals in “small amounts”.
However, “small amount” is generally unspecific, and some of these chemicals (especially benzene) are harmful at any level of exposure, even toxic at an exposure level of only parts per trillion.
Additionally, how companies are containing the slick water post-fracking varies from company to company, sometimes with a great potential for soil and groundwater contamination.
This matters because if any of these chemicals were to mingle with the water table, under which lies the shale with a layer of bedrock in between, it is possible that people’s drinking water could be affected.
However overall, EPA is working with states and other key stakeholders to help ensure that natural gas extraction does not come at the expense of public health and the environment.
The Primary concerns include human and environmental exposure to:
* Radioactivity that is a physical characteristic of Marcellus shale.
* The hazardous cocktail of hydro-fracking chemicals injected into the ground.
* Air pollution from diesel engines.
* Brine that is 5x saltier than seawater that can damage freshwater streams and lakes.
* Hazardous liquid and solid waste that is stored on- site, transported on public roads, and disposed of at municipal landfills.
Works Cited
http://www.peacecouncil.net/NOON/hydrofrac/HdryoFrac2.htm
http://www.citizenscampaign.org/campaigns/hydro-fracking.asp
http://www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracture/
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February 14, 2013