Contemporary Science And Innovation

We need the following equipment for our generator lab:

• One generator (magnet that moves back and forth inside a coil of wire)
• One voltage probe
• One NXT adaptor
• NXT
• Labview VI  generator_lab.vi
• Excel sheet

Introduction:

Faraday’s Law states that changing magnetic fluxes through coiled wires generate electricity (currents and voltage).   The greater is the change in magnetic flux, the greater are the currents and voltages.  In this lab we shake a tube which has a magnet that travel back and forth through a coil of wires. The faster you shake the tube, the greater will be the generated voltage.

Procedure:

1. Shake the tube a different rates,
2. Count the number of shakes in the data collecting interval (set to 30 seconds)
3. Calculate in Excel the sum of the squares of the generated voltages (SSGV’s) (the voltage is logged after each second)
4. Plot the SSGV’s as a function of # of shakes and fit the result to a linear curve

Results:

Hydraulic fracturing is the propagation of fractures in a rock layer caused by the presence of a pressurized fluid. Hydraulic fractures form naturally, as in the case of veins or dikes, and is one means by which gas and petroleum from source rocks may migrate to reservoir rocks. This process is used to release petroleum, natural gas (including shale gas, tight gas and coal seam gas), or other substances for extraction, via a technique called induced hydraulic fracturing, often shortened to fracking or hydrofracking.

New York State Assembly members Robert Castelli and Steve Katz call for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in the Croton Watershed in October 2010.

Fracking poses serious dangers to both human health and the environment. The three biggest problems with fracking are:

• · Fracking leaves behind a toxic sludge that companies and communities must find some way to manage. Safely disposing of the sludge created by fracking is an ongoing challenge.
• · Somewhere between 20 percent and 40 percent of the toxic chemicals used in the fracking process remain stranded underground where they can, and often do, contaminate drinking water, soil and other parts of the environment that support plant, animal and human life.
• · Methane from fracture wells can leak into groundwater, creating a serious risk of explosion and contaminating drinking water supplies so severely that some homeowners have been able to set fire to the mixture of water and gas coming out of their faucets.

Methane also can cause asphyxiation. There isn’t much research on the health effects of drinking water contaminated by methane, however, and the EPA doesn’t regulate methane as a contaminant in public water systems.

Because of the high demand for natural gas, the controversial process known as hydrofracking has created thousands of jobs. Yet environmentalists argue that long-term negative effects outweigh the short-term economical gain.

Ongoing concerns about the potential impact of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on drinking water have pushed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to investigate public concerns in light of the growing importance of natural gas in the clean energy future of the United States.  On 23 June 2011, the EPA announced plans to conduct a draft study of the impact of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water by conducting case studies at seven U.S. sites.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic fracturing

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

http://ehsjournal.org/

The automobile industry is trying to increase its gas millage by using the different ways. According to them, everyone should use good engine oil, preferably synthetic or standard oil treated with a friction reducing oil additive. These have been known to improve fuel economy by as much as 12%. Make sure your tires are properly inflated. Under inflated tires cause more resistance to travel.

Four years ago, the American auto industry was so opposed to higher fuel economy standards that executives of Detroit camped out in Washington in an unsuccessful bid to undercut them. Automobile industries focussed on some points to increase gas mileage which are: Avoid stop and go traffic by taking alternative routes or less congested travel times. Keeping your highway speed at 55 mph can improve you gas mileage by as much as 25%, compared to 75 mph. Observing the speed limit is also safer.

Avoid trying to increase speed while climbing a hill, your engine is already working hard trying to overcome gravity. Keep your windows closed when possible. Open windows actually reduce gas mileage compared to using the A/C. Remove accessories, such as luggage rack, etc. that lower the aerodynamics of your vehicle.

The automakers are confident that they can achieve incremental goals each year, but the real test will be if costs can be lowered enough so consumers will want to buy more electric and hybrid models.

“The standards are going to be quite stringent and a challenge,” said Scott Becker, a senior vice president in the United States for the Japanese automaker Nissan. “But given the range of technologies that we either have currently or are developing, we will be in a position to meet them.”

Support for the new standards by the Detroit and Asian carmakers will allow the administration to formally set forth the plan by the end of September, which will then be followed by a public comment period.

The White House has said the regulations will save drivers money at the pump in addition to reducing emissions. In the past, Detroit might have challenged the thesis, or forecast a negative impact on job growth. This time, the automakers’ trade group proposed radio ads that would have raised concerns about job losses, but the proposal was squelched by some of the companies, notably G.M. and Chrysler.

Instead, the automakers decided to sign on to the goal of 54.5 miles per gallon — and wait and see if it can be achieved down the road.

Resources:

Introducing Dynatec MPG+

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

http://www.nytimes.com

I did an energy experiment recently which is about how much energy is lost to friction. the details are as follows as:

Objectives/Goals:

The purpose of this project is to find out exactly how much energy friction exerts on the motor. It was hypothesized that friction should constitute most of the resisting energy of the motor.

Methods/Materials:

1. 400 watt Power Supply, to supply Hard Drive with clean and stable power.

2. Stripped Hard Drive, to test the motor.

3. Tachometer, to read RPM on Hard Drive.

4. Reflective tape, for Tachometer to have accurate readouts.

5. Black construction paper for Hard Drive.  This would enable us to put reflective tape on the paper andget accurate RPM.

6. Tape, to keep black construction paper attached to Hard Drive.

7. Screw driver set, to strip the Hard Drive, and to attach the black construction paper.

8. Compass, to make Circular disks to place on the Hard Drive.

9. Ruler, to measure certain dimensions of the motor, and to get the radius for the black construction paperto be attached to the Hard Drive disk.

10. D.M.M.( Digital Multi Meter ), to measure voltages and current usage of the motor.

11. Stopwatch, to measure the time needed to stop the motor.

12. Calculator, to calculate the kinetic energies.

13. Scale, to weigh each part of the motor.

Results:

Work/second = 9.84 joules/4.94 seconds = 1.99 joules/second or 1.99 watts. The results showed that for every second the motor runs, friction in the motor exerts 1.99 joules of energyin the backward direction.

Conclusions/Discussion:

After running all the tests and experiments with the motor, our hypothesis proved correct; most of the energy acting against the motor came from friction as the energy of friction represented 82.5% of all the energy acting in the backward direction. Every single set of data supported my hypothesis as all of the trials produced results that were not far from the mean value.

In recent years, robotics has become increasingly popular as an educational activity. At both the college and pre-college level, a growing number of schools and other educational organizations are offering opportunities for young people to build their own computer-controlled robots. In the process of designing and programming robots, students learn important engineering, math, and computer science concepts. However, a gender gap exists. Robotics tends to attract a much higher percentage of boys than girls, particularly in free-choice learning environments such as after-school programs and museum classes.

Some people get engaged with patterns and structures, while others become more involved in storytelling and drama. Robotics activities typically support the former style more than the latter. But a different sort of robotics activities could engage both styles. For example, a popular activity in many science centers is for young people to create a Rube Goldberg contraption, where each device triggers the next.  As a variation, we have offered a chain reaction workshop in which participants begin with a story and then design contraptions that follow a series of events with a beginning, middle, and end.

The design of robotics technologies can greatly influence how the technologies are perceived and used. For example, the LEGO Mind storms robotics kits are well-designed for traditional robotics activities, such as making a robot that finds its way through a maze. We have been developing a new technology, called the Cricket that is designed explicitly to support artistic invention. Cricket kits include multi-color lights and sound devices that can be programmed to create animal sounds, rhythms, and musical notes. The goal of this work is to expand t h e range of what people can design, create, and learn.

Demand response is a resource that allows end-use electric customers to reduce their electricity usage in a given time period, or shift that usage to another time period, in response to a price signal, a financial incentive, an environmental condition or a reliability signal. Demand response saves ratepayers money by lowering peak time energy usage, which are high-priced.  This lowers the price of wholesale energy, and in turn, retail rates. Demand response may also prevent rolling blackouts by offsetting the need for more electricity generation and can mitigate generator market power.

It is estimated that a 5% lowering of demand would have resulted in a 50% price reduction during the peak hours of the California electricity crisis in 2000/2001. With consumers facing peak pricing and reducing their demand, the market should become more resilient to intentional withdrawal of offers from the supply side.

The picture shows the demand response in the Residential Electricity Sector:

Many industrial users of energy think demand-response schemes made possible by smart grid technology are a great idea — for somebody else. When you operate time-critical industrial processes like furnaces or conveyors, it is hard to envision a scenario in which you could shed such loads in the interest of reducing peak energy demand.

Example:

Pacific Gas & Electric pays $25 to customers willing to participate in their Smart AC program, in which households with central air conditioning systems allow the utility to install a device that would allow the utility to turn down your cooling system in the event of an “energy supply emergency” in the summer, between May 1 and October 31.  Customers may opt-out for particular days if PG&E is given notice, though they will override your request in the event of an emergency.  Customers may cancel membership in the program at any time.

Demand response viewed from the utility side removes the need to keep generating capacity available to handle peak loads. Energy intensive businesses that can shave some loads on demand can expect to share in the savings that utilities realize.

Resources:

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Demand+Response/

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

http://eetweb.com/energy-monitoring/manufacturing-facilities-shave-energy-bills-201011/

By way of comparison, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that occured in 1986 in the Ukraine, Russia- heretofore the worst nuclear disaster on record- burned for 10 days and cumulatively killed an estimated 1 million people worldwide. The Fukushima, Japan nuclear disaster has 5 nuclear reactors burning, 2 in partial meltdown and 3 in full meltdown- and they’ve ALL been uncontrollably burning since March 11th. Its been over 3 months and this nuclear disaster remains completely out of control. In fact, some industry estimates cite the possibility that these meltdowns will be contained (optimistically) in 1-3 years, at the very earliest.

The amount and intensity of the radioactive fallout from this particular nuclear disaster will assuredly kill hundreds of millions of people worldwide over time. Japan itself is, of course, the epicenter of this radioactive contamination that has spread out from these reactors.

However, the Korean peninsula, China and nations immediately surrounding the Japanese archipelago will also bear the brunt of a significant amount of radioactive fallout from this disaster. Immediately downwind of this radioactive release, though, is the United States of America and the entire northern hemisphere, comprising the majority of the world’s industrialized nations on Earth. Significant amounts of plutonium, strontium, cesium, uranium and a whole plethora of other highly radioactive particles have already fallen on the continental land mass of the USA and have already entered the food chains and water tables of the nation.

To give one an example of how lethal radiation is, one pound of plutonium evenly distributed into everyone’s lungs would kill every man, woman and child on Earth. There are literally “tons” of radioactive plutonium (among other radioactive elements) that have been released into the air and ocean environments since March 11th. Another critical fact to remember is that radioactive plutonium, for example, remains lethal (killing life) for thousands years as it has a half-life of 24,000 years. Some other radioactive elements such as uranium have a half-life of 4.47 billion years.

In a nutshell, Fukushima represents a literal catastrophe for the human species, plain and simple, there’s no other way to put it. As a past anti-nuclear activist (I participated in a dozen or so civil resistance actions at nuclear facilities all across the nation years ago) my credentials span from being a personal friend of Dr Robert Oppenheimer’s son- himself an anti-nuclear activist- to having met and talked with the late Dr Edward Teller (father of the hydrogen bomb), to collaborating with a former Trident II missile designer helping to warn humanity about the dangers of nuclear war. In this journey, I learned ALOT about radiation and its harmful effects on human health.

Radiation kills, and thanks to the recent Fukushima disaster in Japan, the REAL story is that a literal nuclear holocaust is unfolding right before us in America and throughout the world. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the federal environmental safety agency arm of the US government has shut down nearly all of its radiation detection monitors in the USA for fear that the American people will learn the TRUTH that a lethal dose of radioactive fallout has now descended upon the nation.

There’s really no way to protect yourself and your family from this new threat, although a few precautions should be noted. First, it has been known for years that miso soup has a way of “chelating” radiation out of the human body. The only one’s who survived after the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan (of all places!) years ago, are those who ingested miso soup. Second, radioactivity bioaccumulates its toxicity higher up the food chain, so its probably prudent to stay away from milk, dairy products and meat. And thirdly, efforts to bolster the body’s immune system with vitamens, purified water and plenty of exercise is sure to help as well. Other than that, pray that you’re not the now 1 in 2 people who will contract cancer in their lifetimes…
by steven c jones

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/

http://nuclearfreeplanet.org/

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