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

Today, I will blog about the about old devices that were invented such as the Heat Engine and the Peltier Device that have being used for many electrical purposes. As a future electrical engineer, the peltier Device is something that I always have interest in and think I could use it to create a sweater with heat or a flashlight that can be turn on by hand temperature. Unfortunately, both devices are already on the market. So a heat engine is a system is used to produce heat using temperature difference creating a mechanical energy. This process has being more effective and less polluted than the steam engine that was used previously.

Second, Thermoelectric cooling is a device that creates a heat flux between the joints of two different materials.  The way it works is it transfers heat from one side to the other using temperature difference to create a current.

 

 

Application

According to Wikipia.com, “A heat “source” generates thermal energy that brings the working substance to the high temperature state. The working substance generates work in the “working body” of the engine while transferring heat to the colder “sink” until it reaches a low temperature state. During this process some of the thermal energy is converted into work by exploiting the properties of the working substance.”

According to ASK.com, “a peltier is also known as a thermoelectric module because it has thermo electric facets, hence works as a heat pump. A module flow of direct current moves heat from a side of the module to the other, cooling one side and heating the other. A single stage can make a temperature variation of 70C, and more than 100C in a multistage unit. They can be used either for heating or for cooling.”

 

Pros and Cons

Peltier Device

• Pros
  • Solid state (no moving parts)
  • No maintenance
  • Long service lifetime
• Cons
  • Large electrical power requirements
  • Inefficient compared to phase change cooling

 

Heat Engine

 Pros

• The process is easy and flexible.

• Unlike its cousin, the steam engine, its emission is safer and better to control.

• Its pressure is stable unlike the steam engine.

Cons

• The machine takes time to warm up in order to produce mechanical energy.

• The system requires effective equipment and it costs a lot.

• It is dependable on temperature difference to create as much power.

So the heat engine and peltier device are both using temperature difference to create heat. While those two systems are effective, they are limited in their usage because in the process of creating heat, there will always be a heat loss and that prevent them to power up and use in big materials like planes and cars.

 

http://www.thermoelectrics.com/introduction.htm,

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

http://www.ask.com/question/how-does-peltier-work

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solar heating system is a process where we use the ultra-violet x-rays of the sum to transform it into heat and reserve it into big tanks and then use it for different heating purposes. This system is naturally used for the hot water that we use inside our home, or to heat up swimming pools. As we know some places have more sun than the other, I believe that a country like Haiti or in the Caribbean with this technology at their disposal could really take advantage of the sun for the whole 12 months. There is more than one system available when it come s to use the sun as a resource. The most popular one right now is photovoltaic cells. This process is now more common these days, because it provides countries like United States, Germany and France an outlet or a support since the demand of electricity for the population is increasing exponentially. So both the makers are struggling with providing enough electricity, as well as trying to solve the pollution issue and the population is revolting again the increase in cost for electricity.

Application

So photovoltaic cells are something a lot of big industries are currently thinking of exploring. Especially Germany, ever since their idea and expense to use renewable energy to provide electricity has failed, they are looking into other options to meet the demand of the population quickly and reduce the cost of electricity.

According to nasa.gov, “Photovoltaic is the direct conversion of light into electricity at the atomic level. Some materials exhibit a property known as the photoelectric effect that causes them to absorb photons of light and release electrons. When these free electrons are captured, electric current results that can be used as electricity.”

The diagram above according to NASA illustrates the operation of a basic photovoltaic cell, also called a solar cell. Solar cells are made of the same kinds of semiconductor materials, such as silicon, used in the microelectronics industry. For solar cells, a thin semiconductor wafer is specially treated to form an electric field, positive on one side and negative on the other. When light energy strikes the solar cell, electrons are knocked loose from the atoms in the semiconductor material.

from this table below, I also found how much solar energy is used compared to other resources and it is quite a large amount:

 

So solar energy is one of the resources that many country are already using including the Untied States. this process may have being here for a while, but due to the high demand of electricity and decreasing its cost, as well as dealing with pollution has led big investors to widen their resource and explore photovoltaic cells more. so i guess we all would benefit if can could rely on this system to power up or provide electricity to homes and businesses.

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

          http://sapiens.revues.org/823

        http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/solarcells/

Introduction:

In the third experiment that we have done in class with the robot is to use a pulley to compare and graph their accelerations using power through labview and mass through a ruler measurement. It also involved examining Newton’s 2^nd Law (F = ma) and into the conservation of energy.

 

Here is a picture of our experiment:

 

Procedure:

For the first experiment, we kept the force (power) at a constant level and only changed the mass of the object been picked up acceleration changed. By theory, when started with the lowest weight, and then increased it with the other try’s, the heavier the mass the less acceleration it produced with the same amount of force (power). And it worked.

 

 

 

 

Table 1
Mass	Acceleration
0.19	394.74
0.14	535.71
0.09	833.33

 

 

 

In this second part of the experiment, we kept the mass steady, and just increased the force (power) of the LEGO motor the acceleration here would change with a positive relationship with the change of the force being incremented. For example: we kept a steady mass of 0.1 kg, and started with a force of 100 decreasing each run by 25.

 

Table 2
Power	Acceleration
100	526.32
75	394.74
50	263.16

 

 

 

Conclusion:

 

I had fun with this lab and it was a successful lab. I work an electrical devices and a pulley to prove the newton 2^nd law. First we had to measure the power, then mass with acceleration and graphed it to confirm that each does what they were suppose to do.

Hand crank generator operates by turning a crank by hand. Because of the mechanical force that we apply to that particular device, help it to create a current to produce electricity. There are many types out there used form different purposes. They have one with enough power to work a blender and other kitchen utensils. The one that interested me was the hand crank charger for devices. It is called the Pocket Socket 2, It generates up to 10watts of electricity at 120 volts. That is enough power to charge a wide range of devices.

Application

The little device can charge any devices that consume 10 to less watts of electricity. It is easy to use because it doesn’t matter if you are right or left handed, you can turn the handle clockwise or counterclockwise. It is so effective that it charges any device, like an iPhone for example at the same rate a 120 volts outlet would. It is also easy to transport and can be stored into small places.

Advantages

According to k-tor.com

• The Pocket Socket is a great universal travel battery charger for digital cameras, cell phones, flashlights, your GPS, iPhone and more.
•  It also generates for all those devices critical for campers, hikers and those in the great outdoors away from an AC outlet.

•  You can generate electricity by hand power when electrical sources are unavailable, such as devastating natural disasters like tornadoes.

• It is an alternative to solar powered chargers that rely on the sun to generate electricity. This little device can be use d at any weather, daylight or night.

The hand crank generator is very important and powerful device. Despite its size, it produces a quite powerful power to charge a variety of device and it also comes handy between life and death occasions. This is a device I would have myself at my disposal to go on vacation in my native country Haiti where electricity is scarce.

 

http://www.k-tor.com/hand-crank-generator/

 

 

 

 

German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen never tires of all the praise for Germany’s energy revolution coming from around the world. Whenever he explains to foreign politicians that his highly industrialized country aims to decommission all of its nuclear power plants by 2022 and obtain at least 80 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050, he is only rarely met with utter denial — at least not among his fellow environment ministers. The reactions range between incredulous amazement, genuine enthusiasm and envy over the great amount of courage such a move takes.

Germany produced more energy by coal in 2012 than it has in nearly a quarter century. King Coal’s return comes courtesy of the energiewende—the policy put in place following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The plan was to phase out the country’s numerous nuclear reactors and jumpstart its fledgling renewable energy industry, but coal has been forced to fill the gap, which is still harming the environment. As well as a bad start of reducing only clean energy.

So, a few things already began going wrong in the weeks just after the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament, passed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plan to shift to renewable energies in late June. A court put a spanner in the works, government plans ran up against opposition and the calculations didn’t add up. Is Merkel’s energy revolution now heading towards a crisis?

A Bad Beginning

The Bundesrat, Germany’s upper legislative chamber, immediately blocked two strategically important laws. Since early July, Germany’s 16 federal states have been refusing to co-finance subsidies for building owners who make energy-savings upgrades on them. The refusal sabotages the plan to lower the energy consumption of buildings, which currently accounts for 40 percent of total energy usage in Germany. Joachim Pfeiffer, the economics expert of the parliamentary group of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-left Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), warns that a “key building block of the energy plan” is in danger. Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), is also critical of the development, saying it is “not a good sign for the energy-savings target.”

Broken Promises

On top of that, three promises are in danger of being broken. First, the government’s energy plan states: “The amount paid by every electricity consumer to subsidize renewable energies is to remain unchanged at around 3.5 (euro) cents per KWh,” or kilowatt hour. But the assessment of Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) will already be rising to 3.8 cents per KWh soon.

Chancellor Merkel had also promised that Germany’s energy revolution wouldn’t force it to become dependent on imported nuclear power. But while German energy generators exported 6 percent of their power in 2010, since the swift shutdown of the seven nuclear power plants in the spring, they’ve been forced to import 2 percent of the energy used. The Environment Ministry denies that any of that energy is from atomic sources despite the fact that electricity generated from the Czech nuclear power plant in Temelin is making its way to Germany via Austria.

Chancellor Merkel also promised that the nuclear phase-out wouldn’t undercut climate-protection efforts. But experts have told the Economics Ministry that, according to their calculations, German CO2 emissions will actually increase by 5 percent — or 40 million metric tons — between now and 2020 because more energy will be generated by coal. And, as of yet, there are still no plans to offset this increase in another area, such as vehicle traffic.

Overall Germany’s plan to use renewable energy and taking away nuclear plants has being an epic failure. Worse they have rushed the plans so quickly that it backfires without even starting. So the people in Germany right now are likely to revolt because the cost of electricity might become a luxury, since the plans has failed and now is hurting the economy. i do believe an renewable resources, but I don’t think we have enough technology to explore clean energy at full extent/ we will get there, but it is not today or tomorrow, so we can’t afford to rush thing like Germany, but use whatever technology we have at our disposal and extract cleaner energy slowly until we can make it a permanent and of course cheap.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/revolution-threatens-to-falter-is-germany-s-green-energy-plan-failing-a-790940.html

http://www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2014/01/09/end-result-of-germanys-green-energy-policy-more-coal/

Germany’s Energiewende Troubles Prove That Renewable Energy Has Failed. And Other Strange Ideas

 

Introduction:

In the second experiment that we have to accomplish is to measure distance and velocity using our Leggo robot. So we have to measure how long the car traveled, both with a ruler and through Labview. Then use both results to compute the percent error for 3 of the trials that we performed.

 

Procedure:

Measuring distance and velocity

1.      We launch the VI wheel_rotation_straight.vi

2.      We study (with the instructor) the VI to understand how it works to measure the distance the wheels travel, and the speed at which the car travels.

3.      With a ruler we measure the diameter of the wheel and compute the circumference of the wheel in meters (circumference= p*diameter).

4.      We run the VI and record:

Experiment:

 

By measurement

Power                                distance			Time                                 distance
75 Power/75 Power	23meter	1 Second.		7meter
100 Power/100 Power	32meter	2 Second.		14.5meter
50 Power/50Power	15meter	4 Second		30.75meter

Through Labview

Power	distance	Velocity	Time		distance	Velocity
75 Power/75 Power	40.1meter	20m/s	1 Second.	13.3m		13.3m/s
100 Power/100 Power	56.9meter	28.5m/s	2 Second.	26.6m		13.39m/s
50 Power/50Power	26.4meter	13.2m/s	4 Second	51.6m		12.9m/s

So now I have to calculate the percent error. First I averaged all the distance measured and collected through labview and then use the formula above to find the Error.

The Percent in error for Power = 89.2%

The Percent in error for timer = 67.4%

So the percent in power is closer than time as we can see, but the reason is that for the time experiment we used just a couple of seconds with has a big effect on the distance we recorded. So if we would have increased the time, our results would be closer t 100%.

This second lab was easy and fun. we finished the experiment early and we are looking forward to use our robots for even more difficult challenges ahead.Measuring distance and velocity

Introduction:

The first experiment we have done in the science 184 class is to build a robot that runs with batteries connected with two motors and controlled by a servo in the middle as shown in the pictures below.

Procedure:

1.     I build the Basic Two-motor NXT Car (picture of NXT)

2.      then program it for the following:

a.       Drive in a circle with ~2 ft radius, one revolution

b.      Drive in a circle with ~2 ft radius, one revolution, reversing the direction

c.       and then make a sound

e.       Make up some funky trajectory for your car

Experiment:

1.      I attach a motor to Port A

2.      I program in LabView a VI to run motor forward, backward, and with various power levels

 

3.  Then use the While loop to run the motor until the Stop button is pressed

4.      Then I use the following program to design a robot that will meet the contest requirements

Overall, my first experiment was a success and easy because of my experience with lab view and being a third year Electrical Engineering student. I am looking forward to the future experiments to have a little fun with my robot.