On March 11, 2011 the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. This was said to have been one of the main reasons behind Fukushima Daiichi which was the largest disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, coming in as a level 7 on the International Nuclear Event scale.

 

The plant consisted of 6 boiling water reactors designed by General Electric but was maintained by Tokyo Electric Power Company. When the earth quake hit 2 of the 6 boilers were shut down for maintenance and the remaining kicked over to emergency generators. Due to the tsunami that came shortly after causing flooding and the generators failed. They were not able to proceed to circulate the coolant water. The pumps stopped and reactors overheated, causing reactors 1,2, and 3 to meltdown. Several hydrogen-air chemical explosions occurred allowing many radioactive gasses to be released. Workers were evacuated for radiation safety.

 

On March 20th the Japanese government announced that the plant would be decommissioned once the crisis was over. Not only was the radioactive material released into the air but also the ground and ocean. During tho time people were advised to stay away from tap water. A few of the workers were severely injured and some were killed. This not only affected the workers but the people living near the plant, the cancer rate went from 0 to 100.

June 7th the government convened an investigation on the disaster. They interviewed 772 people (plant workers, government officials and evacuees). They said that the government and TEPCO failed to prevent the disaster not because of the tsunami but because they did not invest the appropriate time and mine into planning for a nuclear disaster like this.

 

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Fukushima-Accident-2011/#.UTlFhZgapzo

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/01/reassessing-health-effects-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-accident

http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/handouts/2013/images/handouts_130225_01-e.pdf

 

When speaking about any controversy involving green energy the Solyndra scandal is one that cannot go without a mention. Solyndra was a California U.S. solar panel manufacturing company. The company produced cylindrical panels of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). They sold solar photovoltaic systems composed of panels and mounting hardware for large, low-slope commercial rooftops. These were to be mounted horizontally rather than vertically for maximum coverage and energy production.

 

Solyndra filed chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011. This was only two years after the U.S. government guaranteed a loan worth $535 million; this was done under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Solyndra then made the decision to close all operations and lay off 1100 employees after the board members could not chose or find a way to get money into the business. These innovative solar panels were very high priced and the company did not have enough lager company customers to create the proper capital to stay afloat. Harrison and Stover then filed bankruptcy.

After this was done, the FBI and treasuries department held an investigation. The Obama Administration once believed that Solyndra was going to be he breakthrough for solar energy pushing forward with the enhancement of “green jobs”. It is known that most businesses do not hold the taxpayers responsible for potential losses when they fail. Therefore it must be known that it is a tricky situation when political investment is involved in furthering or helping companies like this. It allows for political favoritism for the powerful and can hurt rather than benefit the taxpayers.

 

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

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

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/obama-fundraises-with-players-in-solyndra-scandal/

 

In this experiment we discussed Newton’s 2^nd Law, The law of conversation of energy, Velocity and Acceleration, and Power.

 

We began the experiment by looking at the weights hung on the pulley to potentially be lifted by the motor connected, the weights were either 50, 20’s, 10’s, and 5’s. The point of this experiment was to figure out how when you have the same mass but a different speed and vise versa what the time and battery discharge is.

First we made sure the USB is plugged into the computer and port A on the NXT robot. Then you need to follow the instructions on how to run the Labview program.

TRIALS 

Change power Levels not Weight

WEIGHT 250g is .25 kilograms

Trial 1

• 40 power level
• Acceleration is 9rpm

Trial 2

• 60 power level
• Result: Acceleration increase

Trial 3

• 100 power
• Result: Acceleration increase

 

Change Weight not power Trials

POWER LEVEL 40

Trial 1

• .19 kilograms
• Result: Acceleration increase

Trial 2

• 1.3 kilograms
• Result: Acceleration increase

Trial 3

• .07 kilograms
• Result: Acceleration increase

We worked on this lab for the past couple of weeks. We first assembled the robot and learned how to connect the robot to the computer and use the lab view software.

This lab was created to help us understand the VI measures the distance that the wheels travel and the speed at which the care travels. Recorded was the distance travelled (a ruler was used) and then you must calculate the percent error.

 

(distance of ruler) − (distance of computer)

% Error  =  ――――――――――――――――――   ×100

Average (distance comp. and distance ruler)

 

With your ruler you need to measure the diameter of the wheel and then compute the circumference.

 

Circumference = p*diameter

 

The degrees that the wheel rotated are related to the number of turn the wheel makes because each wheel rotation is 360 degrees.

 

Seconds are related to milliseconds because 1 second is equivalent to .0001 milliseconds.

 

From the equation Distance = circumference* # of turns the wheel turns we are able to relate the distance to the number of turns.

 

We were told to run 3 tests with the same time but different power levels of 75%, 50%, and 25%. The inconsistency with our data may have been because of the fact that our measurements were not particularly precise due to the circumference being recorded with a ruler.

 

We then used Excel to transfer and record all of our information.