SCI-184

Global warming has been one of the more highly debated topics among scientists and politicians alike for the past two decades. In the early 1990s when a group of scientists started to focus on global climate and weather change almost immediately another more political and commercial based group began counter argued that the evidence wasn’t concrete. Today, over twenty years later we have mounds of data proving that global warming is in fact true, and it was caused by human activity. A typical denial argument may be, “climate change isn’t real”, well are scientific facts real? Another being, “climate change is natural”, sure it fluctuates over decades but not nearly to the extent it has since the early 1990s. Or one of my favorites, “there was nothing we could do to stop climate change.”

“Climate change denial” is a more specific, group organized conspiracy of sorts to counteract the legitimate scientific evidence by speaking out against global warning, saying that it isn’t caused by humans and that it is a natural cycle of the earth. The idea of “climate change denial” is apparent within large energy corporations. Due to the fact that global warning is directly linked to the amount of fossil fuels we burn you can see why BP for example would not want to convey the hard facts if it will hurt their company, and even more importantly to them it will slow down the income and cash flow of the company.

You can see how easily incorrect information can make it’s way into popular culture (news, TV, radio) simply by taking a look at what happened in the late 1990s when a certain group consisting of industry leaders and conservative politicians got together with the American Petroleum Institute. The API wrote an article of sorts trying to gather up conservative scientists who may, or may not have had previous relations with energy companies. The idea was that these scientists would be willing to argue, as much as they could against global warning. If we take a step back and first realize what’s going on we will find misleading information is a given outcome. Simply put, scientists were hired for the wrong reasons to prove a factual concept (global warming) wrong.

To take it a step further global warming has recently began to show the effects directly on US land. The small town of Kivalina, Alaska began to see flooding linked to global warming. In 2008 the town filed a lawsuit against ExonMobile and over ten other petroleum companies stating that their activities would force the town to relocate as soon as 2016. Unfortunately the case was dismissed in 2009, as one might presume it’s not so easy to prove that a slew of companies directly lead to global warming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial

http://climatedenial.org/

http://grist.org/series/skeptics/

Solyndra Logo

Solyndra was a new and upcoming company that developed and produced solar panels, they were known as a “green” company. Before the government, specifically the Obama administration got involved with Solyndra they were relatively unknown to the general public. In 2009 the Obama administration and the federal government guaranteed and co-signed a loan worth $535 million dollars to Solyndra. This loan was going to create thousands of jobs, add exponential growth to the company, the end product being solar panels to help harvest “green” energy. Sounds like a win win, right? Not so much. In September 2011 Solyndra filed for bankruptcy leaving the Federal Government stuck with a $535 million dollar loan to pay back. To make matters worse was the question, where is that money coming from? American taxpayers. How could the government had invested and backed such a bad business deal, and company? Were the intentions of the deal moral? Did inner circles enable sour deals to be made? Was the $535 million truly intended to go to the company from the start? All of these questions have been asked among the general public, leaving a bad taste in their mouth along with questions about the presidents intents. The government has been accused of rushing the deal through without taking proper precautions in order to satisfy its own agenda. Solyndra executives donated over a million dollars to the Obama administration, friendships were called into question. In late 2011 just after the company filed for bankruptcy a federal investigation was launched on executives of the company.

Nothing like a good Political Cartoon

The whole deal seems shaky at best. How could our government invest in such a bad deal? There must have been other intentions. This scandal, unfortunately is nothing new. It’s happened before and is bound to happen again. The way in which our government is structured almost opens its doors, welcoming bad deals like this to happen more often. There needs to be more separation between personal business relationships and governmental relationships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra_loan_controversy

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-18/news/ct-met-kass-0918-20110918_1_solyndra-loan-guarantee-obama-fundraisers-obama-white-house

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/24/opinion/the-phony-solyndra-scandal.html

Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as “hydrofracking” is a was first introduced in the mid 20^th century in the United States. In it’s simplest use hydrofracking is a technique in which a liquid is pumped throughout certain layers of rock, dirt, and other materials under the earths surface. The fractures, or cracks that the fluids create allows gas, or oil to flow more freely through the layers of rock, making it easier to harvest and turn into useable energy. Similar to other technologies used to harvest energy (wind turbines, deep sea drilling) hydrofracking has been a highly controversial topic. It is argued that the pros out weigh the cons. Negative aspects of hyrdrofracking include using harmful chemicals in the process, altering the natural makeup of the earth for short term gain, also the amount of construction and material these operations take. Scientists argue that this technique alters the water natural water fields under the earths crust due to the newly man made cracks. The hydraulic waste gets carried into natural reservoirs, possibly contaminating drinking water. What hydraulic waste is recovered may, or may not be disposed of properly.

Growing up in Central New York hydro fracking has become a popular topic of discussion. It is quite obvious that the small towns do not welcome hydro fracking operations other than a few capitalists and land owners who see the short term economic benefits.

Hydrofrack New York

There are however positive aspects behind hydrofracking as well. In an economic downtime hydrofracking operations create jobs, from blue collar jobs to higher paying technical supervisors and scientists (Roughly 140 jobs per operation). It also can stimulate suffering local economies with a surplus of money, although usually not directly hydrofracking does have short term economic pros. It is also said to help our national economy because rather importing oil and gas from other countries the US is getting it domestically, putting money back in America’s pocket opposed to Russia or the Middle East.

Good or bad?

Whether it is ultimately good, or bad it continues to happen, thus the controversy surrounding it does. I know one thing, as long as there is money involved it will continue to happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing

http://www.oswegonian.com/news/5145/hydrofracking-the-controversy/

http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/Hydrofracking-Controversy-Heats-Up-Again/k0ZXfO7uAU2T-ZZT5cAgOQ.cspx?rss=102

Not that long ago gas prices were low, under two dollars per gallon, the economy was good and there were not many worries in the eye of the public. In recent decades our needs as humans have overcome the needs of the environment, burning fossil fuels to no end drying up any oil fields we have left. Today the public has taken notice of these effects we are having on the environment. In order to counteract our previous damage we must study and develop more ways to sustain the energy we do create. Sustainability is currently a big topic of discussion within the science and technology world. One branch currently developing new technology is the automobile industry.

Newly developed hybrid cars have seemingly been a small success. Other areas include the hydrogen car, cars that run on natural vegetable oils, and even tires that are suppose to help add fuel mileage to the car.

Hybrid Car

A hybrid car works off of a fairly simple concept. Along with the standard gasoline combustion engine there is an electric motor, a generator, and series of batteries to store excess power. How does it work? The electric motor is used to place resistance against the wheels, acting as a brake and slow down the car. In return the spinning wheels turn the generator which supply’s power to the storage batteries which power the electric motor. The electric motor enables itself in several typical driving stations. For example, when the car comes to a rest it turns off the gasoline engine and relies on the electric engine, cutting back on CO2 emissions and adding gas mileage. During acceleration the electric motor provides backup power further helping improve CO2 emissions and better gas mileage.

Although hydrogen cars have been researched and studied for decades they have not yet found a commercially viable way to produce and safely transport. Another recent development was in the use of vegetable based oils to power combustion engines. Any diesel engine can be transformed rather easily into a “green”, eco friendly vegetable oil combustion engine. The problem with vegetable oil is that while it is easy to produce it isn’t exactly possible to produce enough vegetable oil to run most American families off of.

Vegtable may be used to power combustion engines

Simple research has show that there are other, effective ways to increase gas mileage among a standard gasoline engine. Drive the speed limit, (generally) the faster you drive the higher rpm’s the engine is running, thus burning more fuel than may be needed. You may also want to make sure that your tires are blown up to the right pressure (in lbs), if it is low the miles per gallon will decrease. Keeping the engine and other parts maintained is important as well.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/drive.shtml

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/hybridtech.shtml

http://www.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car.htm

Nine Mile Point Oswego, NY

Nuclear power plants have always interested me, I grew up in central New York which has a nuclear plant located in the city of Oswego on the coast of Lake Ontario called Nine Mile Point. Since the advancement of technology in the late 20^th century during the Cold War and the nuclear arms race between Soviet Russia and the United States the subject of nuclear power has been highly debated for many reasons. One of the largest issues concerning nuclear power is the the instability of the reaction and reactors in which the power is generated. While the instability of these nuclear power plants may be slightly blown out of proportion by the general public it is certainly a concern among any nuclear specialist. The largest concern being bad weather (natural disaster), a mechanical, or structural issue.

On March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Eastern Japan effecting four of the regions nuclear facilities, Fukushima Daiichi had the worst outcome of the four. Unfortunately the Fukushima Daiichi power plant was located directly on the coast of Japan therefor suffering not only from the original shake of the earthquake but from a tsunami following shortly after. Of course any nuclear disaster of this magnitude will create debate upon debate regarding the safety and health issues of such a power plant.

First, lets discuss the facts and figures of the Fukushima disaster. During the initial stage of the earthquake all three effected reactors at Fukushima automatically shut the power supply down as they were suppose to. However, unlike the other three sites the Fukushima site was directly effected by the tsunami (flooding) therefor lost just over 90% of their backup generators which are suppose to supply the backup cooling systems with power. The Fukushima Daiichi plant was declared a nuclear emergency the night of March 11. This is the first large aspect of the disaster which went wrong. Due to lack of efficient cooling of the nuclear fuel rods inside the reactor they began to “melt down” which is a worst case scenario for any nuclear plant. At this point the site has little to no power for anything, lighting, backup coolers, any tools they may need had to run off of batteries. As time went on the reactors kept getting hotter, building up air pressure (hydrogen) so the workers released the air pressure of each unit on a scheduled basis. However when releasing air pressure in unit three it built up in another area of the unit therefor creating a massive explosion damaging much of the outer containment vessel.

The Fukushima plant from a distance as the reactor explodes leaving a trail of smoke

Another similar explosion happened in unit four happened a day later creating a large scale radioactive leak. Only days after the the first radioactive leak at Fukushima was detected scientists find it spreading quickly through Eastern Japan and over the Pacific Ocean towards the Western United States. According to a recent article titled California Slammed With Fukushima Radiation by “George Washington” at inforwars.com seaweed tested off the coast of Southern California had a roughly 500% greater presence of iodine-131 than anywhere else tested in the United States. The recent disaster at the Fukushima site has also brought up the debate over what radioactive levels are safe for human contact. How long can one withstand, and on what level can they withstand radioactive waves to maintain a healthy life? Should we as world citizens, and intelligent humans educate ourselves on these issues?

http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html

http://www.infowars.com/california-slammed-with-fukushima-radiation/

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/fukushima_accident_inf129.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant

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