Though I was not able to make it to the Museum of Science on the date that the class went I have been there before many times and the exhibit that I like the most is Seeing is Deceiving. I enjoy this exhibit this is show that things are not always as they are perceived. I believe this is an inspiration for not only the experiment I did with my group but every experiment in testing things and discover what is really the ‘truth’ because things may not be as seem or complex as they seem.
In this experiment my partner and I took a small solar panel and shined a light on it and measured how much energy was gathered from the light. Through out the experiment the light and the strength of the light remained the same, only the distance from the light to the solar panel was changed. My partner and I took the light and measured it 2, 5, 10, 20, and 30 centimeters away from the light and also with no direct light(with the lights of the room still on). From this experiment we came to the conclusion that the further away the light the less power the solar cells gather.
My group and I took about two classes to decide what we wanted to do for our experiment. At first we were trying to just find a topic and try to do something with that topic. We googled science experiments but only got the cliche science fair projects like paper mashe volcanos and solar systems. Being that I took a sustainability course in high school I tried thinking back to some of the projects I did in that class. Which got my group thinking about cars and how to make them ‘greener.’ Which just lead us to nowhere cause we still had no idea what to do. I believe it was Brandon that brought up Professors Vales Mendocino Motor and the idea of magnetic fields. From there we went to the idea of self rotating magnets to be used to rotate and power a motor. For the next couple of weeks that was what we were doing for our experiment but we forgot about one thing.. how we were going to build it. After realizing be did not have the tools to build what we had originally planed we decided to go with the simpler idea, The generator experiment. We decided to take the previous experiment and test wether the coil generates more power when the magnet is inside or outside of the coil.
The Keystone XL Pipelines are 2000 miles of pipes running from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf coast of Texas. These pipes are being put in by a company called TransCanada and they intend to transport 830,00 barrels of tar sand oil daily. Tar sand oil produces three to four times more CO2 than conventional oil due to the extensive energy used to extract tar sand oil and refine it. This process will no only ruin ecosystems but also water supplies. It takes three water barrels to extract one of oil. And out of those three barrels at the end of the process 95% of the water, 24 million barrels per day, will be so polluted that they have to be stored. This waste will be stored in human made pools called tailing ponds. The main problem is that over time the pollution starts to seep into the ground creating ammonia that will find its way into public water systems making the water undrinkable. All of this oil will never actually be used in the US it will only be refine in texas then shipped off to Asia. ‘There’s not a drop of oil that’s going to be brought to America unless it spills from the pipeline’- Becky Bond. So Whats so good about the Keystone Pipeline? Money,
and lots of it. The whole operation will create more jobs and national security as well. Pipes over tankers was the choice and pipes seem to be the more eco-friendly idea, surprisingly.
Citation:
“Friends of the Earth.” Friends of the Earth. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Abrahams, Tom. “Experts Discuss Details of Keystone XL Pipeline Project, Its Pros and Cons.” Abclocal.go.com. American Broadcasting Corporation, 18 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.
“Keystone Pipeline.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Dec. 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
The generator experiment was interesting because I got to see how to simple things such as a magnet and copper coil can produce electricity. During this experiment we took a nxt and attached it to a flashlight with a magnet in the inside wrapped around a coil and recorded the voltage measurements on the different amount of shakes. After analyzing the data and graph my group and I realize that the more we came to the conclusion that the more we shook the flash light, increasing the number of times the magnet went though the coil, the more energy was produce.
The second largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in transportation is heavy duty vehicles. In 2011 the Obama administration passed a standard for all heavy duty models between 2014-2018. This standard will eliminate about 270 million metric tons of greenhouse gases and 530 million barrels of oil. In the June 2013 Climate Action Plan the Obama administration set a goal for cars to have a fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. With this large jump in fuel economy it would eliminate 6 billion tons of carbon pollution adding up to more than the US emits in a year alone.
So far the Obama Administration has reduced gas emissions by 15%. This reduction has the equivalent to 1.5 million cars being taken off the road. For the future the Climate Act has set out a goal that in 2020 20% of the US energy source will come from renewable energy. With the current use of renewable energy being used is at 7.5%.
In the Climate Act Plan it is stated the federal government will now expand and prioritize forest and rangeland restorations efforts. The federal government will create the Western Watershed Enhancement Partnership, which will remove bushes and other flammable plants around areas where there is a risk of wildfires.
I thought our tour of the MIT nuclear reactor was a good learning experience. When we first got there we were taken to a room to learn the a brief description of the nuclear reactor and how it works. After that we were taken on a tour of the nuclear reactor (bottom picture). One thing I thought that was interesting was the fact that the MIT nuclear reactor was one day used to help cancer patients and still has the potential to help them but is no longer doing it.
During the tour we were also taken inside the operations room(bottom picture) where there was a young girl monitoring everything that was going on and recording everything going on. During the tour of this room we learned about the reactor automatic shut down system if there was ever a leak.
Professor Tom Vales came into our class and presented four different technologies, the Peltier Junction(top middle), the Stirling Engine(top left), a Mendocino Motor(top right), and a Tesla Generator(bottom).
Professor Vales began the presentation explaining what is a Peltier junction, where he explained that a man named, Jean Charles Athanase Peltier, in 1834, discovered the Peltier effect. The Peltier effect is the presence of heat and cold at two different conductors make an electric current. He also explained that this type of technology was used in fans and submarines.
A 200 year old technology, The Stirling Engine as the professor explained uses air displacement between hot and cold and a power piston to generate power. This technology is still used to this day in cars.
The Mendocino Motor uses magnets and solar cells to produce power. This technology has its own magnetic field and also captures electricity from the light that make the motor spin. The professor explained that this technology is not very practical because solar power is not always reliable.
The Tesla Coil was invented in 1891 by a man named Nikola Tesla. The technology is used to produce Ac current at a high voltage and frequency but a low current. This technology is used in xenon flashes in todays modern technology such as phones and camera.
Get Well Soon Professor Vales!