A group of 2,600 people living in Faldsboldsrad’s town in southern Bavaria, playing a role cautiously in a bold experiment in a renewable energy generator in Germany, it is called “Energiewende” and it means “a shift in power.” The shift is an absent from nuclear power and fossil fuels and it is considered one of the complicated initiatives undertaken by the government two decades ago.

In the town of Faldsboldsrad, dozens of homes and public buildings are equipped with solar cells that are high-tech. Also on the hills there are wind turbines financed by the local population, and many of the farm buildings are build next to it a biogas plants.

This produces equipment and other similar projects, equivalent to about 500 percent of the requirements in the town of Faldsboldsrad comes from energy. Thanks to the new German Renewable Energy Law, which gives priority to the wind power and solar energy from the energy produced by coal and gas. The renewable energy is expanding quickly and unimaginably then before. Guenther Mugel, deputy mayor of the town, says: “I think the people of the town were amazed by the quick transformation of energy produce”

Berlin estimated that the total cost of this transformation project could be up to one trillion euros. Claudia Kimfirt, an energy expert at the German Institute for Economic Research, says: “The fear of the Germans has always been the power outage and the danger of nuclear energy. Now they are afraid of the new experiment of the shift in power. There will always be a poor management in the process, and there is an urgent need to improve government.”

Pressure will be increased on the new government in order to rethink the process of Germany in this prominent project, and it will be monitored globally. Said Ulrich Grillo, president of the German Federation Industries: “It was always clear that there is a price for that, but they were getting into new engineering energy that supplies without the presence of an engineer”

It is expected that most of the production of alternative energy in Germany will be in the north, which requires high-pressure lines for electric power transmission to the south. But the creation of these lines decline, because the Germans do not want to see the view of an ugly electricity pylon near their homes.

Sources:

http://www.wikipedia.org

http://aawsat.com/details.asp?section=31&article=679212&issueno=12235#.UvGtO3mgTf4

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/analysis/2323207/hollande-deepens-franco-german-renewable-energy-ties

Once again we have encountered with Lego Robot in our previous class, but this class we used our robots for another purpose other than just programming the robot to go forward and backwards. In our previous class we have learned about acceleration, velocity, distance, and displacement; with all of this information we used our Lego robot to demonstrate how these factors apply in real life.

As an engineer I have learned these factors in previous years. Knowing how to apply them and how they are represented in real life. However, it is always a good learning phase to get back to the basics and be refreshed more in these lessons. It is also very helpful to learn the basics with different aspects from each professor; it can clear more of the concepts of these factors.

In last week class, the task was to measure the velocity of the robot by a ruler and compare it with lab view measurements with different power source, but at equal time of 1 second and at finally find the error of the measured and the lab view . My partner and I (Pavel) have completed this task successfully with no problem accrued.

Velocity = distance/time (m/s)

Error = absolute (measured – lab view)/((measured + lab view)/2)*100

As an electrical engineer at Suffolk University, I have employed the Lego robot many times since my sophomore year. I have always been interested in robotics and how to program them. Learning that we will once again be using the Lego robot, I became excited.

Our task at first was to build the robot and                                                                                         Our second task was to program it.

First Task:

Building the robot was not hard at all; I have always known my self that I am capable of building Legos. I was introduced to Lego games since I was young. Furthermore, Building the robot was an easy task knowing that I have the guidance to help me build it in a fast and efficient way.

Second task:

Programing the robot was also easy for me because I have learned this skill in one of the engineering courses, which took me some time to learn where are the tools to build the program, and seeing my fellow classmate that are not an engineering major; programing it for the first time and it worked, was very interesting and admiring to see.

         When Mother Nature gets angry, no human can stand in front of her. Hurricane Sandy strokes the northeastern coast of the United States of America in the 29th of October, which is part of the tropical cyclone that hit the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Hurricane Sandy caused the biggest interruption of energy electricity in history! Where the storm uprooted giant trees from their roots and destroyed power lines, leaving more than five million people in the dark! In addition, the hurricane devastation caused also fires, floods, high winds and heavy rains inundated the streets of two cities New York and New Jersey and other U.S. states.

The recorded tidal was high more than expected during the hurricane, the number of deaths has reached 185 people. In addition, 52 billion dollars went for losses, the stock was closed, and all flight was canceled knowing that the force wind was 175 miles per hour. The hurricane flooded the tunnels, trains and metro water, and New York City was the city most affected by the hurricane, followed by the city of New Jersey.

The Hurricane affected all coastal states in the United States, including Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, New York, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It did not only harm the United States, but Hurricane Sandy reached some states and other coastal cities, such as Canada, Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas and Bermuda.

To deny that Sandy was intensified because of climate change would be to deny science. Rising ocean temperatures and sea levels make storms like Sandy more powerful and disastrous. Three years ago, the federal government actually predicted that we would be seeing storms like the one we have just been through.

sources:

1- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/climate-change-sandy.html

2- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy

3- http://earthjustice.org/blog/2012-november/as-sandy-victims-shiver-america-must-stay-alert?gclid=CKDo_cOhrrwCFcY7OgodmSwA2g