Category: Uncategorized

The Keystone XL Pipeline is actually a proposed expansion. What already exists is actually just the Keystone Pipeline. This is a pipeline that runs from Alberta, Canada and ends in the U.S, specifically in Cushing, Oklahoma.

The “XL” addition to the Keystone Pipeline would add 1,700 new miles and have two sections of expansion.

One section would connect in Cushing with the Gulf Coast of Texas. This would be due to the current bottleneck of oil that is in Cushing, Oklahoma and in the Gulf Coast of Texas is where a lot of oil refineries abound. This part of the leg started in January 2014. This section would help bring  up up to 700,000 barrels of oil to refineries in Texas. It is also expected to carry more heavy Canadian oil.

The second part of the leg would go from Alberta to Kansas. It would go through Bakkan Shale region of Montana to western North Dakota. It is designed this way because it will pass through a region where oil extraction is currently booming and it will take on some of this crude for transport.

Pros:

• May increase energy security for Gulf Coast
• Is safer than other transport options
• Economic benefits
• Jobs*

 

Cons:

• Negatively impacts national and local economies
• The same fossil fuel interests pushing the Keystone pipeline have been cutting, not creating, jobs*
• Unemployment will rise
• Poor and working people will be disproportionately affected
• It could contribute to Global Warming

 

*In my research I found that jobs would be both a pro and a con*

 

Refences:

• https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/keystone-xl-pipeline/
• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/us/politics/what-does-the-proposed-keystone-xl-pipeline-entail.html?_r=0
• http://www.labor4sustainability.org/articles/5-reasons-why-the-keystone-pipeline-is-bad-for-the-economy/

During this week’s class we paired up with our group for the final project. I was very excited to be able to pick our group because I have worked in this class with both of my group members before and we all work very well together and are used to each other’s working style and schedules.

After we had picked our team the brain storming began. We decided that we wanted to do something along the lines of something that we had touched based on in class. We searched up different things on websites and YouTube to get some ideas.

As a group we decided it was best to select a bunch of ideas while we were in class and send it in an  email and look over them again and decide what we would do.

We worked very well and productively during this week’s class. We were all pretty much on the same page on what we wanted to do but were all also very open minded, which is also appreciated. Like mentioned before we narrowed it down to a couple that we were really interested in and within this week we will narrow it down to one.

 

Pandora’s Promise is documentary and it was very much set up like a documentary, which I enjoy very much. In documentaries they usually have old footages and images of events that are being talked about with a voice over explaining the situation or what they thought.

In Pandora’s Promise it introduced 5 people that are very knowledgable in this field, and if I understood correctly in their introductions, they talked about a position they felt before hand and hinting that they had later changed how they viewed it and became pro-nuclear.

The beginning was very fitting. It talked about the Fukushima Daiichi, which we had learned about and had done a blog on. It was nice to hear people talk about it and not read articles and the images in this documentary were out of this world. Reading about it when I had done my blog post I was shocked but seeing the live footages and the exposing live were really something else.

I thought it was really interesting to see Japan a year later, and having someone there and basically experience what they experienced.

(I very much enjoyed the whole Fukushima Daiichi part of Pandora’s Promise, I was VERY interested by the footage!)

Another thing I really enjoyed about Pandora’s Promise was the relation we could make from things in outr class, like the Fukushima Daiichi, but also when _____ was speaking of how he worked at Argon National Laboratory (might have incorrect spelling) and they showed the room and I had flashbacks to the MIT lab trip it was very similar and so I related. Later on in the documentary they showed more of Argon National Laboratory and again flashbacks of MIT, but this time we had a view of the outside and inside and it was so similar to the one I had just previously visited. Then they talked about the “IFR” which we saw one at MIT and in Pandora’s Promise we got to see one being used, and it was very nice to understand it better and actually see how it worked.

Every speaker, although being very accomplished in this field spoke in a language that didn’t make me feel lost and I really enjoyed this as I watched it because science is not my forte and I could actually learned a lot because much of it was broken down.

But along with being very through their language was also very raw and real. You could tell when they were angry or when they were stunned at something. It made their reactions seem real and not acted.

Overall I really enjoyed this documentary. From the language, images and the message that it sent. I would recommend it in the future!

Last week we had the trip to the MIT nuclear reactor lab. Walking over I couldn’t believe I drove by so many times and never knew what was right there. I think that is the biggest shock I had from the entire trip. Once we got there, we had signed in and I was impressed to see how tight security is there. It was good to see how seriously they take it.

The first part of the trip was a power point presentation that was delivered by Tom. He did a wonderful job. it was very thorough, so thorough that the time went over a bit. Our class also had plenty questions to ask which were all appropriately answered by Tom. The presentation did go a little long which made me, at least, a little anxious to see what it looked like in there since we talked about it in the power point presentation.

The next part of the trip was the tour which was kind of exciting. The tour was given by Sarah who, if I’m not mistaken, is the superintendent and was described as the “smartest person to give the tour”. She was very very through with entire tour and always checked in and asked if we had any questions. We walked through the entire lab including a “bird’s eye-view” from the top and going down to the basement.

Things I found amusing in the tour:

• how often radiation is tracked, appropriately so. They had “thermometers” that measured it throughout the lab, checking our hands and feet twice as we left the tour, and the instrument that was handed to us in the beginning of the entire trip.
• how big the lab really is!
• how involved MIT students can be with this lab.
• I was really interested on the chemo that was talked about in class and how MIT is involved in such interesting project.

Within my research I found a list of the top ten countries using solar power:

(this article was written in September 2014)

1. Germany 35.5 GW
2. China 18.3 GW
3. Italy 17.6 GW
4. Japan 13.6 GW
5. U.S 12 GW
6. Spain 5.6 GW
7. France 4.6 GW
8. Australia 3.3 GW
9. Belgium 3 GW
10. United Kingdom 2.9 GW

 

Germany was titles at number one. It actually has been in the past couple years as well. As a matter of fact, it is not expected for Germany to loose its number one spot,  and it “still boasts a quarter of the world’s installed PV capacity 26 percent”. Germany’s goal is to produce 35% of its electricity from renewable sources by 202 and 100% by 2050, but on June 2014 Germany succeed on producing 50% if its energy from solar. The internal costs of generating PV electricity is more expensive in electricity made from conventional power plants in Germany.

More towards the middle of the list we have Spain. Spain has a solar farm built to encourage more production of energy from renewable source. This farm is built by the company Abengoa and is locates 20 miles west of Seville. This farm is trailblazing technologies that are being done in other countries, including the United States such as CPS also known as concentrated solar power. This solar farm is shut down when it rain and it has two concrete towers. that collect light reflected by 1,879 large glass mirrors. The mirrors follow the sun.

Last on the list is the United Kingdom. The UK made records when on a sunny day 15% of its energy was from solar power this summer. As of July 2015, there are around 700,00 small- acre installations on the grid. This is enough to power 655,00 households. ” Britain is currently installing solar capacity more quickly than any other European country.” In Wadebridge, a town in the UK, has around 500 houses have solar panels on their roof, which is nearly 10% of homes in the area.

 

 

 

References:

• http://pureenergies.com/us/blog/top-10-countries-using-solar-power/
• http://theweek.com/speedreads/451299/germany-gets-50-percent-electricity-from-solar-first-time
• http://www.smithsonianmag.com/40th-anniversary/a-spanish-breakthrough-in-harnessing-solar-power-1106582/?no-ist
• http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/02/solar-power-provide-record-15-uk-power

This week’s Lab was the solar cell lab. This lab was broken down into two parts; the first part was 5 trails which consisted of us flashing a light at a solar panel (no light and light shined directed were mandatory). The second was four trials, one for each color filter, shining the light directly at the solar panel at 0 cm. With this lab we were to understand the connection between light and voltage output and how they connect.

For this experiment we had assumed that the 0 cm, with no light, would be the least and the 0 cm where the light was flashing directly at the panel would the highest. With the filter I thought that the green, because it was the darkest of the filters.

Here is the data for the first part:

1 No light

Average: -0.05

 

2.  0 cm

Average: 0.41

 

3. 2 cm

0.39

 

4. 5 cm

Average: 0.36

 

5. 10 cm

Average: 0.35

 

 

 

Heres the second part of the data (with filters):

*All of the trials with filters had the light measured at 0 cm*

1. Clear filter

Average: 0.40

 

2. Pink filter

Average: 0.34

 

3. Green filter

Average: 0.28

 

4. Blue filter

Average: 0.31

 

 

For the first time, we did not have any problem while working on the lab. We got through the whole thing without a single malfunction and that was really exciting! It felt really good to not stress and put 100% into this lab.

On Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:46 in tragic incident hit Great East Japan. An earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 had hit but that wasn’t all. This earthquake was so massive  it gave a rare and complex double quake  that had a severe lasting of three minutes. Following this earthquake was a 15-metre tsunami. This tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi  reactors. Within this tragedy, all three cores of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors melted in the first three days and a total of four reactors were written off because of the incident.

This earthquake and tsunami duo cost plenty of damage to Japan, imaginably so.

• the tsunami inundated about 560 sq km
• resulted in human death toll of over 19,00
• and created  damage to coastal ports and town with over a million buildings destroyed or partially collapsed

Fukushima Plants:

there was the Daiichi and the Daini. The Daiichi was built at 3.1 based on assessments from the Chile tsunami and revisions made in 2002, but unfortunately after this accident it was under some 5 meters of seawater. The Daiichi was the most affected. The earthquake itself didn’t cause any harm to the reactors, in fact he operating units 1-3 were shut down because of it.

“When the power failed at 3.42 pm, about one hour after shutdown of the fission reactions, the reactor cores would still be producing about 1.5% of their nominal thermal power, from fission product decay”. From the moment the tsunami hit, till the days after things went downhill. world-nuclear.org has a wonderful chart explain what shut down and and what time it happened.

Event sequence following earthquake (timing from it: 14:46, 11 March)

	Unit 1	Unit 2	Unit 3
Loss of AC power	+ 51 min	+ 54 min	+ 52 min
Loss of cooling	+ 1 hour	+ 70 hours	+ 36 hours
Water level down to top of fuel*	+ 3 hours	+ 74 hours	+ 42 hours
Core damage starts*	+ 4 hours	+ 77 hours	+ 44 hours
Reactor pressure vessel damage*	+11 hours	uncertain	uncertain
Fire pumps with fresh water	+ 15 hours		+ 43 hours
Hydrogen explosion (not confirmed for unit 2)	+ 25 hours service floor	+ 87 hours suppression chamber	+ 68 hours service floor
Fire pumps with seawater	+ 28 hours	+ 77 hours	+ 46 hours
Off-site electrical supply	+ 11-15 days
Fresh water cooling	+ 14-15 days

* according to 2012 MAAP analysis

There was so much damage because of this such as fuel ponds and radioactive that was released into air. Due to this people where evacuated from the zone, that by March 12th was extended to 20 km from the plant.

Damages from this disaster lasted till December of that year.

Japan’s New Strategy:

Although there was a promise made by a previous government, approved was a strategy first proposed by the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “This plan summarizes Japan’s challenges of policies to be tackled, and its lines of long-term, comprehensive and systematic energy policy”. Since this accident there has been an immense amount of things done to prevent an incident of this magnitude to happen again. The radioactive in the water has been recorded stable as of 2015.

 

 

References:

• http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident/
• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/world/asia/japan-new-energy-strategy-approved.html?_r=0
• http://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/others/basic_plan/pdf/4th_strategic_energy_plan.pdf

While doing my self study of nuclear energy there was plenty of information that I’ve learned that I did not have knowledge beforehand.

Things I learned:

• The “economic advantages” slide alone was mostly filled with information was not aware of. For example that 17% of the world’s electricity is from nuclear power.

• I had learned before about the splitting of atoms, and also of fusion but this self study reminded me of the correct term: Fission

• Before this self study, I did not know that there were types of radioactivity, and all of the sources of natural radiation, especially soil and air.

• On the topic of radiation, I also learned that from 1940-1970 most radioactive waste was dumped into the ocean. After discovering this I couldn’t help but wonder how much damage that costed.

• A funny thing that I learned from this study was the yucca mountain. Being born and raised in Brazil, for me yucca is a food and many Americans have never eaten yucca before and reading about yucca mountain I wonder if it has anything to do with the food.

“All of us will need to do our part. If we embrace this challenge, we will not just create new jobs and new industries and keep America on the cutting edge; we will save lives, protect and preserve our treasured natural resources, cities, and coastlines for future generations.”

This by far was one of the most striking lines in the reading from President Obama’s climate action plan. A plan he put forth in 2009 to reduce carbon pollution to better our planet in various ways for our future generations. In this plan he talked about three specific pillars.

1. Cut Carbon Pollution in America: 

President Obama set a goal in 2009, that by 2020 he would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emission at around 17% below the 2005 levels. So far the Obama Administration have been doing a good job at trying to complete this goal. They have doubles the generation of electricity from wind, solar, and geothermal and also by setting forth historic new fuel economy standard. In this pillar is set up with steps that the Administration plans to take, such as deploying energy, which include cutting carbon pollution from power plants. If the Administration follows these steps, along with us and local governments we can start to create a better environment for the future generation.

2. Prepare the U.S. for the Impacts of Climate Change:

Over the past several years we, across the United States, have experience some of the most traumatic climate changes ever seen. With continues days of 100 degree weather, severe winters, and droughts. This part of the plan focuses on acknowledging these weather changes but also being prepared for them. Meaning that the Obama Administration will work with state and local governments to improve our roads, bridges, and shoreline for the protection on our people and businesses in due of these severe weather changes. Moving forward the Administration will spread efforts in three parts to prepare America. These include; building stronger and safer communities and infrastructure, protecting our economy and natural resources, and using sound science to manage climate impacts.

3. Lead International Efforts to Combat Global Climate Change and Prepare for its Impacts:

Tying in with the second pillar, the third pillar talks about how we, as a country, can’t face this challenge of climate change alone. With this part of the plan the Administration focuses on the “United States to couple action at home with leadership internationally” and that “America must help forge a truly global solution to this global challenge”.

I have briefly heard about the President’s plan, but never really got into depth with this plan. Reading this definitely made me more aware of what will happen and what I can do to help. I, too believe that not only should we be prepared for these climate changes we have been experiencing (especially after last winter in New England) but also aim to make this planet safe and healthy for our future generation. Coming from a family who has a history of asthma, I do feel this is very important.

This trip to the Museum of Science was the first time I’ve been there in a very long time, but everything was still exactly as I remembered. I was very surprised, that with my knowledge of the class now, there were so many exhibits what had to deal with what we have been talking about in our class. We visited four exhibits; Catching Wind, Investigate!, Conserve @ home, and Energized!

Energized!

Energized was the first exhibit we did, there was a lot there that we had already spoken about in class and that was really cool to see example and pictures right in front of me instead of hearing it and being taught. In this exhibit there was a lot about solar powers and a very cool little example that we used light reflected off of a mirror to make a wheel turn, the more light we shined the faster the wheel turned. Being a student that learns with more hands on, it was really nice to see that and understand it.

heres more from energized

 

Catching Wind:

Next was catching wind and when we started looking at the exhibit I immediately heard professor Sonek speaking. This was exactly everything we had talked about in class previous weeks. It had things Energy sources and mentioned things we spoke about in class and words that when I read light bulbs started glowing like natural gases and solar power etc.

 

Investigate!

 

This exhibit is tied for my favorite with conserve @ home. This exhibit was just so interesting to me because it had everything to do with my everyday life but at the same time it didn’t and it was just so intrigued. It explained what happens when flush your toilet and what happens when your drain clogs and it was so interesting because I never thought of “what happens” and it was cool to learn. I actally caught myself staring at one specific part that showed what happened when you put certain objects (light bulb, CD, DVD, bar of soap, and a peep candy) in a microwave. I was so surprise at 1: what happened to the soap, my prediction was that it would melt but instead it grow as it if was being peeled. and 2) the lightbulb, I for sure thought it would explode in there and instead it kept lighting up!

 

 

Conserve @ Home: 

Again this one tied for first for me.

 

This was a very small exhibit but filled with information that again I had no idea about. Things that I can do from my very house that will help the enviroment, like planting a tree in my backyard and recycling.. the proper way. In this exhibit i learned that steel cans can be recycled and became a bicycle and that plastic water bottles can be recycled and become fleece! I learned so much.

 

 

Overall I had a really great experience at the MOS, it refreshed my brain to things that we had already touched base on in class and I also learned so many new things.