today’s blog is about my final project for the Science 184 class and my last blog for the semester. so this final project purpose is to create a scientific experiment, explain how it works and present it to the class. it is also a group project consisting of four individuals and between them i ma the group leader. my job is to make sure everything is going according to plan , where i have to keep everyone including myself updated and motivated to work on our project.

so when we got together, we shared several ideas, such as using a watermelon with other credentials to create a voltage to power up an iPhone. we also talk about creating a sweater that can provide heat, but due to time constraint, it was not in our favor. so we decided to search the internet for possible experiment and we finally has one that we are interested in and want to proceed with.

so the project that we will be doing is assembling several nickel and coins to create a voltage. the way it work is we would put them on top of each other, one after the other and put a wet paper towel to hold them together and use a multimeter to record the how much voltage it produces whenever we add more elements to it.

so the process occurred due to a chemical reaction between two elements, that is chemical reaction, to create a voltage, that is an electrical process. so we believe that this would be a great experiment to share in class and we also have the approval of the instructor to accomplish it.

 

 

 

v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}

Normal
0
false

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline is an oil pipeline system that would run from Alberta, Canada to the center of the US, Nebraska. This project has being a hot topic ever since it was introduced in 2010. It has sparked both praise and critics though the higher power like member of the congress and even the president. The idea of this system is to help to have a homegrown resource at our disposal and also helping reducing the amount of resources imported from other countries like Iraq and Venezuela. However we know that every change or creating a new system also has his complications along with its benefit.

 

The proposed keystone XL pipeline has being around since 2005, but only were used in Canada. It has created a thousand of jobs and help boost the Canadian economy. So they decided to expend the pipeline to the US in 2010. They reveal different routes for the pipelines to get to Nebraska, which would be the destination. Some member of the US government including the president is not a big fan of the project since his plans is to build more renewable energy and cutting on oil dependency.

So the pros of his project would be:

·         It would open up thousands of jobs

·         It also means that it would decrease consumption from OPEC by 12%.

·         It would boost the economy

However the cons seem to overcome the pros, which I understand why the president is stalling on passing the bill:

·         The pipeline would damage the environment condition.

·         Its leak would affect the fresh water in Nebraska.

·         It would also affect the wildlife animal.

·         It would create and add the air pollution by releasing CO2.

·         Last and most of all it is not a clean energy, which is the future of the president’s plans.

So this system sounds good, but would have being better if it was introduced in the 19^th century. Since in this present day, we believe that clean renewable energy is the way to a better future, I don’t believe the pipeline resolve our solution even half way going forward.

Today’s blog is about the a couple of key Points that I would like to emphasize about from the President’s initiatives and beliefs to push for a greener and safer environment as well as expanding new ways of providing and creating electricity. In the President agenda, the three things that grab my attention were cutting down pollution from power plants, increasing fuel economy standards, and Cutting Energy Waste in Homes, Businesses, and Factories.

For his first initiative, the president has a sense of urgency to cutting down pollution from power plants as fast as possible and layed down his plans of how he is going to achieve that. As we all know that pollution has taken several thousand lives each year and the president administration has being making huge steps to cut down on pollution and promote renewable clean energy. From the president’s first term until now, he had accomplished and currently working on different methods to boost this process. not only has he being promoting renewable clean energy, he also issue a permit for 10 gigawatts of renewables on public lands, he also expending and modernizing our national grid, which provide the electricity that we use. So with all of those factors in appliance, our future at least in having electricity at our disposal, as well as having them affordable and cheap will ease the burden on the population to afford it and also help the government to have enough energy to supply for an infinite period of time.

The second aspect that I also took notes that the president is being working on is increasing fuel economy standards. What it means is according to THE PRESIDENT’S CLIMATE ACTION PLAN agenda, “In 2011, the Obama Administration finalized the first-ever fuel economy standards for Model Year 2014-2018 for heavy-duty trucks, buses, and vans. These standards will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 270 million metric tons and save 530 million barrels of oil…….. The Obama Administration has already established the toughest fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles in U.S. history. These standards require an average performance equivalent of

54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, which will save the average driver more than $8,000 in fuel costs over the lifetime of the vehicle and eliminate six billion metric tons of carbon pollution – more than the United States emits in an entire year.” So not only the population will save money on transportation, but also his plan is to reduce a decent amount of carbon dioxide along with it.  It is a win-win situation for both the public and the government. Last time I checked the government as well using transportation and aren’t immune to pollution as well.

 

The third plan in the president agenda that I found really interesting is Cutting Energy Waste in Homes, Businesses, and Factories.  Under this category, the plan is to reduce bills energy for families and businesses, and also establishing new coal for energy efficiency standards, reducing barriers to investment in energy efficiency, and expanding the president’s better building challenge. So the plan on reducing bills energy for Americans families and businesses is that it will help the population saves hundreds of dollars  at least in the first year and more as the system fully takes in on heating and cooling, it will also help reduce gas emission. The second aspect is establishing new coals for energy efficiency standards, which is set up new minimum standards from refrigerators and dishwashers. It is actually in process and the goal is that by 2030, it will help save millions of dollars and electricity that could power about 85 million homes for 2 years.  Another aspect of this category is reducing barriers investment in energy efficiency, which means that the president would provide up to 250 million dollars to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for energy efficiency and renewable energy systems. Last but not least, the president also would plan on expanding the president’s better building challenge, which means that it placed to help Americans commercial and industrial buildings to be 20% energy efficient or more through 2020.

 

So the president’s plan in dealing with creating more renewable energy and saving the pollution money as well as reducing to pollution seems to be a great success on paper and hopefully would translate in reality, assuming everyone would have the same mindset and urgency that he does to make sure that our environment is safe and also making life easier financially for the public. His plans emphasized clearly what he wants to do and where he wants to go with the future of our energy and resources and I do believe with enough support and urgency, life might be a lot easier at least in the energy department looking in to the future.

On Friday march 20^th, 2014, I have attended and learn first-hand about four different energy and innovative exhibits at the museum of science located in Boston. As a future engineer, the four exhibits such as catching the wind, conserve at home, energized, and innovative engineers was extremely a great guidance for me to learn and be a part of it one day.

The first exhibit that I went to was the innovative engineers, which describes the life and work of several engineers and inventors to make our daily life easier. The three engineers that impressed me the most and can relate to myself are Dean Kamen, Stephanie Kwolek, and Eric Bailey. Like them, I always wanted to create something to help people and always had curiosity of how electrical devices work as a kid. And I hope as well in the near future I create a few things that will help save lives or make them easier. Dean himself invented auto syringe to deliver the exact dose for medical purposes, and also a generator that could be used in poor countries to help everyone consume clean water. Eric invented a CT (computed tomography) machine to help hospital scan from your neck to head area for any potential damage. These people have helped make the world a better place and I hope one day I could do the same.

The second exhibit that I checked out was catching the wind. The exhibit describes insightful knowledge of hoe the wind is used to provide electricity. It was more like a review to me since I already knew much that the wind was a clean and renewable energy, as well as 1% is only used to provide electricity in the US. But I have also learned that the wind mill process has being here for centuries. I was surprise to learn that the first wind mill was developed in the year of 500 A.D. I also learned that the wind is originated form the difference in temperature from the sunlight that moves the warm air and replaced it with cool air.

The third exhibit was energized, which provide most of the information about the mix of energy sources such as fossil fuels, hydro power, nuclear, solar, and wind that we use to power our city and described all of their advantages and disadvantages. This part to me was just a review of all the blogs that I have done as well as researching all of those materials before. For example I know that fossil fuel is not expensive, that’s what it occupies 80 % of the population electricity, but causes a great deal of pollution and thousands of people every year. Like hydro power is a clean energy, but take a lot of power and expensive material to produce a decent electricity, but in addition I have learned that it destroys and changes the landscape. For solar energy, I also learned that by theory the sun is powerful to provide electricity for infinite amount of time, but only 1% of it is used to provide electricity, why?? Well it is because of the inconsistency of the sun in certain region or area of the world.

The last exhibit that I visited was conserve @ home, which taught me a great deal of how myself and everyone else can help reduce the amount of extra energy wasted every day and also save us money and our natural resources. In this department, they also displayed several useful methods such as experiment with temperature, gravity, and a bed of nails. The experiment with temperature was to learn if Styrofoam cups keep water warmer than paper cup and the experiment showed that it was the same, but I thought that the Styrofoam cup would have kept it warmer. For the gravity experiment, I used a small ball put it in a tube to a certain height and dropped it to record how long it took to get down and tried it again with a different height that was also recorded to be to same. I also tried the bed of nails experiment, where i layed down on this flat surface and hundreds of nails lifted me up without hurting or piercing my skin. The process is explained that laying down on all those nails, which each carried a small amount of my weight and the pressure is relatively small because there are so many of them, which resulted in me not getting hurt.

After watching the movie, “Pandora Promise” has clarified and pointed out the irony and controversy of nuclear power plants production. From the movie, a number of scientists who before were against nuclear power plants became pro nuclear after did their own research and learn better about the background of nuclear. We all know of different tragedies like the bombing of Hiroshima in world war II, the shenobyl incident , and recently the fukoshima incident has caused the large population to feel unsafe and skeptical about nuclear in general. However from this movie and the biography of nuclear and the wrong propaganda used to stop its production should be able to help the population to have a better understanding of the small danger and big profit we could extract from uranium and nuclear fission. The movie covered multiple aspects that I found useful in helping us move forward and understand if we really want to go clean in energy, nuclear might be the possible and only successful clean energy source that creates enough electricity to power 80% of the world and all the other source of energies can only provide a fairly 5% TO 20% maybe.

From the movie, one of the reason that people are likely afraid of nuclear is because of its use in world war II and the damage it left behind until this day. It was the new technology and many powerful countries wanted to have something like that at their disposal for war purposes. So a lot of countries were doing a variety of tests of nuclear weapons in the 20^th century that scared a lot of people and believe that the world would come to an end. People never had a background understanding of this new energy and the first experience and test related to it destroyed two big cities and left those places inhabitable for decades.

The second reason that forces people into believing that nuclear was wrong and revolted against it was back after World War II, a few scientists acknowledge and discovered that uranium could be used to create and provide electricity. So big Oil Company weren’t really thrilled about this discovery because of the damage in profit they would suffer, they create propaganda to boost the public in revolting against it. They inserted into the public’s mind that people would be exposed to radiation that could lead to genetic mutation and a variety of cancer. The process of nuclear power plants also create nuclear waste and these waste needs to be contained in tanks in deserted places, so they would use this as if these waste were expose to our environment would bring us great harms. So those propagandas were pushing people to revolt against nuclear energy and benefit the oil company making money.

Third is every non-scientist individual and also anti-nuclear scientist are worried about nuclear radiation. A large amount of the population doesn’t know that radiation is all around us and is also in nature. We have consumed and as well as being exposed to radiation everyday of our lives from the sun and different other elements in nature. However, whenever people use radiation and nuclear, everyone is afraid that something is extremely wrong. This movie allowed me and anyone who sees it to understand that people doesn’t know much about radiation and how it is measured, so their lack of knowledge about it scared them into knowing whether it is good or bad.  I do understand that shenobyl was a tragedy that scared a lot of people, but based on untied nation about 50 people died of the cause compared to the false accusations that 1 million of people died.  A lot of people are currently back in their home and have not died of radiation or contamination related to the tragedy.

in the MIT nuclear tour, i have being to the facility that is located in the center of the city of Boston and learned more about the place, what they do and have accomplished over the years, as well as helping me being more open to the usage and importance of nuclear energy.

on the tour, first we all where given a lecture about the facility and their variety of project and experiments they have accomplish and are working on for decades. they are unlike most nuclear power plants, which their focus is not to generate power or to produce electricity, but dedicated for experiments of different kind. they are also the only school in Boston that has a nuclear power facility and have permission to use it even being located in the center of populated areas.

then we started with the tour, where we went inside where the nuclear reactor is located.  i have learned about the boron experiment, where decades ago, MIT actually had a small room, which they perform a certain therapy on real patient with tumors or cancer diagnosis, which ended because it is expansive and they do not have a doctor who is currently interested in this process. they also talk about the NTD silicon process, where they use silicon type materials and exposed it to a high level of radiation until it burns and ready to use as a transistor that could be use into electrical devices like laptops. having this type of reactor performing these types of activities requires a good amount of power, even though is not as much as a regular nuclear power plants, so they have a control room, where one worker monitor everything and check to see if everything to performing normally.

this trip did not only expand ,y knowledge about nuclear reactor and their usage, but also helped me lost that fear factor i had before about its usage. i hope that others who were skeptical like me also would have that chance to see first hand that nuclear is not harmful itself , it is what we choose to do with it. i believe that nuclear power plants is still dangerous and vulnerable at a certain level, but with the technology we have and will have in our possession will help us better manage them and use them wisely for the better of our environment.

 

After I have read form the MIT website, I have learned about their facility and sole nuclear power plant located in the center of the city of Boston.  MIT first of all is one of two schools in the US contain the largest research programs at their disposal. And that nuclear reactor that they have has being use for multiple researches. A few of those researches are life changing and useful to our community such as, radiation effects in biology and medicine, neutron physics, geochemistry, and environmental studies. They have being working on those projects for decades.

So the nuclear reactor that they have at their disposal is unlike those other nuclear power plants used to produce electricity.  This one is quite safer, because it doesn’t require as much power for its usage. This helps the workers, as well as the city not to worry about it being unstable. The facility have also create a pressure door, before you enter the place the nuclear reactor is located leaking air inside, so if something would have gone wrong, everything would be sealed inside and not leaking into the outside to infect anyone.

In order to work and do all the amazing things, the nuclear reactor is composed into various useful parts that make it functional. A few of these parts such as the in-core that is used to force circulation either under pressurized or boiling condition, the beam ports that are used to transport any materials or experiment into the reactor where human would be expose to high radiation activity, and a control room that is used to make sure everything is working normally or to evacuate the facility if anything was out of the ordinary.  

The best and most important part about of my learning form this website is the research they have accomplished over the years, such as, boron neutron capture therapy, which is helping people diagnosed with cancer, an easier process than chemotherapy. As well as neutron scattering, they study the structure and dynamics of matter at the atomic and molecular scale. They also work on neutron radiography, where if you would try to look at a picture of a dog would be 4 times clearer and provide more inside details than any radiography that we have currently. And my favorite as an engineer, NTD silicon doping, which is they insert a silicon into the reactor and exposed it to a high level of radiation until it burns into a transistor chips  similar to the one that is used in electrical devices like laptops and is also more effective than those laptop transistors.

Overall I have learned a lot about the MIT facility and nuclear reactor. It has helped me better understand the range of how important nuclear fissions is and how useful it can be when used right. I know that a lot of people are still skeptical about nuclear power plants due to its misusage in the second world war and its ability to create mass destructive weapons, but it can also in my opinion help us go far into medicine and create renewables power for the future and improvement of our planet.

 

Today my blog will be about Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which occurred in 2011 after an earthquake followed by a tsunami hit japan and damage several nuclear reactor power plants. These power plants were out of control and started leaking radioactive materials to the environment and water that was close to them. So japan authorities forced an unprepared evacuation that led to many people’s deaths, which fortunately didn’t have anything to do with radiation exposure. It was a catastrophe and took japan months and help form unwanted countries like the United States to stabilize those power plants However, until this current day, there are still issues related to this cause, like water contamination is still ongoing, the reconstructions of those areas, which were populated areas, as well as meeting the safety requirements like containment of radiation if something like that happen again, and an easy evacuation process for the people.

So due to this recent catastrophe, japan officials have decided to focus and create new energy strategies to prevent something like Fukushima to happen any time soon. So they have decided to shut down those affected nuclear power plants. According to Wikipedia, “the disaster changed the national debate over energy policy almost overnight. “By shattering the government’s long-pitched safety myth about nuclear power, the crisis dramatically raised public awareness about energy use and sparked strong anti-nuclear sentiment.” So japan since then has considered and being focusing on solar energy, natural gas and coal, as well as having a plan to upgrade the other nuclear power plants around the country despite the country’s opposition,

Japan is a very evolve country and has being using nuclear energy for some time that nuclear energy occupied a quarter of Japan’s electricity. So this disaster didn’t only damaged the country temporarily, but for decades to come. Every country is trying to rely more on renewable energy, especially japan, now face a major setback since now they have to rely more on natural gases and coals for their main source of electricity. I know that japan is looking into other renewable energy like solar, but I do believe that they will go back to using nuclear energy even more in the future despite any opposition, because they truly believe nuclear power is their way of a greener and better future.

 

http://mashable.com/2014/03/11/three-years-after-fukushima/

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

 

We all have seeing how the world have used so many types of energy to produce electricity, from the high wind to the ocean, from the ultra violet light of the sun to the most used resource that is coal. All have helped us keep this world that we live in powered and functioning. However today, my focus in on three specific electricity generation, which are coal-fired power plant, natural gas, and nuclear power plants. however, we all know that coal has being the source of electricity forever and we all depend on it on a global scale.

 according to worldcoal.org

 Coal plays a vital role in electricity generation worldwide. Coal-fired power plants currently fuel 41% of global electricity. In some countries, coal fuels a higher percentage of electricity.

Coal in Electricity Generation
South Africa 93%	Poland 87%	PR China 79%
Australia 78%	Kazakhstan 75%	India 68%
Israel 58%	Czech Rep 51%	Morocco 51%
Greece 54%	USA 45%	Germany 41%

this table provide an understanding of how much coal is used by many countries worlwide.

Application

How is Coal Converted to Electricity?

coal is found in part of the country in form of archaic rocks that are either blended with the earth or deep into certain warm environment. so they use by machine to separate and take big portion of the coal and send it to the place to prepare it to produce electricity. so the system is that, the coal is being crushed to powder and send it to a combustion chamber to burn at a very high temperature. for a visualization of how the system works, the image depicted below would help understand the process:

 when all the process are applied, the coal is now ready to produce electricity. it could generate up to 400 thousand volts. then this voltage is provided to us and businesses through copper wire and when it reaches us, it decimate to 100-250 volts to meet our needs.

Second, How Is Electricity Made from Natural Gas?

Natural gas works similar to coal. Natural gas can be found under layers and layers of the surface that we walk on. The process of extracting it is that from the ground, we pass it to a compressor and store it into reservoirs ready to be use. Normally, in a country like here, we mostly use it during the winter time to provide heat, and hot water. This image depicted below shows the process in a more visual way:

 

 

 Thirdly, nuclear power plants

In this modern day, nuclear power plants have being a resource every powerful country is ready to explore to produce electricity. Although people seem to feel somewhat anxious about it because of its ability to make destructive weapons to wipe all of us out if it falls into the wrong hands. However, it seems like it could answer a lot of the question that we have to help keep producing electricity to keep up with the population demand, as well as reducing pollution.

Application

The main source used to create nuclear power plant is uranium.  For the process, first a reactor vessel takes the uranium atoms and split them to create a nuclear energy that will transform into heat energy. Then, they use a pressurizer at 300celcius to keep water into its liquid state for the steps ahead. After different other processes, a steam generator is use to transform that water into steam. Then a turbine generator is used to transform the mechanical energy in electricity due to the electromagnetic field.

The image depicted below provides more details about the process:

So whether we are using coal, nuclear or natural gas plants, we are fortunate to have as many resources available to produce electricity and power the world. However, natural gas and coal are also have emitted tons of carbon dioxide onto the air that is affecting our environment, where nuclear power plants doesn’t, but the amount of energy used is almost equal to what is being produced.  So overall we depend on coal and natural gas for now, hoping to create a more efficient source of electricity in the future. Therefore, our greatest hope is that we are no longer in denial about the threats they cause to our environment.

 

 

http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-of-coal/coal-electricity/

http://www.cpsenergy.com/services/natural_gas/natgas_generation.asp

https://www.edfenergy.com/energyfuture/generation-nuclear

 

Geothermal energy is created from high level of hot temperature from the ground extracted to produce heat and electricity. One of the most active countries that use the geothermal process is Iceland. Iceland is known to be located near volcanic structures and high dense places made it easier for them to produce electricity through that system. According to Wikipedia, geothermal heating meets the heating and hot water requirements of about 87% buildings in Iceland. So it is proven that geothermal is a good enough source of energy to help meet the needs of Iceland population and other hot places around the world. Although this system may have being use to meet the requirements of the population and is also a good source of energy, however with all the goods, there are a few down sides to the system as well that I will enlighten in the paragraphs below.

Application

First lets talk about the process of which geothermal energy is produced. We already know that we used high temperatures coming out from the earth itself. Then water are put into big reservoirs along with he heat create steam and hot water that later transform into electricity. According to Wikipedia, there is a pump system that uses the constant temperature to heat up a home in the winter, then extract left over heat from the building and transfer it back to the ground in summer time.

So now we know we have an understanding of how the system works. So let me share with you the good and bad about the system that limit its production to certain capacity.

Pros and cons of geothermal energy

Pros

1. It does not create or contribute big amount air pollution due to its process of using heat transfer back and forth.
2. It has great potential energy and has about an estimate of 2 terawatts (TW).
3. It can be use for either heating and cooling
4. The extraction of heat to produce electricity doesn’t require fuel, so it is less expensive and stable economically.
5. It is available everywhere, as we know all of the earth has heat internally.

Cons

1. It can lead to earthquakes in some cases.
2. Geothermal power plants and geothermal heating/cooling systems are very expensive to build.
3. As we know, it is more effective in certain places than others, places like Boston wouldn’t benefit much from it.

So even though geothermal energy is a great source of energy and could produce enough electricity as many other systems. It also has it share of problems we have to face and preventing us from solely depending on a system like geothermal. However, It is 95% better than coal in term of environmental issue and problems.

 

http://energyinformative.org/geothermal-energy-pros-and-cons/

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/geothermal-profile/

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