Monthly Archives: March 2012

Solar energy lab

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Equipment:

  • One solar cell
  • One voltage probe
  • One NXT adaptor
  • NXT with light sensor
  • One light source
  • Labview VI  solarlab1.vi
  • Ruler
  • Colored film filters
  • Excel sheet

As you can see, for this solar energy lab we used a  flashlight as a light source, a solar panel and different color light filters. The purpose of the lab was to perform several experiments to try to gain an understanding of the relationship between light intensity and the voltage output of the solar cell, as well as the relationship between the wavelength of light and the voltage output of the
solar cell.

First, we flashed the light on the sensor at different distances on the ruler. For example in the diagram, I and my partner choose 10cm, 15cm, 20cm, and so on. When we did this our results showed that as the wavelength decreased, the voltage would increase.

Then next was the fun part. We used the colored strips next to see what we can observe and how different it was to the non-colored results. I and my partners results kept getting all messy, For example, we kept getting negative results when we wasn’t suppose to. But at the end all were increasing.

 

Museum of Science

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The day of the museum of science tour i showed up alittle late. I asked the information booth is Sufolk university had a tour but they didnt even know. So i thought that it would be a good idea and just roam around the museum myself even though i’ve been there aout 100 times. At the science museum I learned a lot about the human body, illusion, space travel, animals, and the world around us. The visit was not very structured so I felt I did fully tap what the museum had to offer. I roamed glancing at things, and taking a closer look at things i saw even more exciting. Even though there was no agenda, I felt I did learn a wealth of information the day of the tour and other times i’ve been at the museum.

 

Solyndra scandal

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THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED: In August 2009, White House staff repeatedly asked Office of Management and Budget officials about the status of a $535 million loan to the solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra. Then, the company filed for bankruptcy. Two days later, the FBI raided its offices in Delaware, refusing to discuss details of the investigation. The loan was granted by the Department of Energy under the green-infrastructure provisions of President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill, and OMB officials privately said they felt pressured to approve the loan prematurely. White House officials made their inquiries to OMB just weeks before Vice President Biden announced the loan at a ground-breaking ceremony in September, part of his long campaign to promote stimulus-spending projects across the country.

THE CONTROVERSY: House Republicans have alleged that the White House pressured OMB to approve the loan prematurely, despite Solyndra’s financial problems. The implication is that they did so for political reasons, as the administration was rushing to promote green stimulus spending.

WHY IT MATTERS:
Republicans have thrown into question the motivation behind and execution of the government’s green stimulus spending, at a time when President Obama’s poll numbers are sagging as he struggles to improve the economy. Early in his presidency, he promised green spending as a measure to alleviate unemployment and improve America’s infrastructure. With unemployment still sitting at 9.1 percent, the Solyndra questions add even more doubts and baggage to a politically troubled program.

For environmentalists and supporters of green technology spending, the Solyndra scandal throws such spending into political danger. If White House officials handled taxpayer dollars irresponsibly for the sake of promoting Obama’s signature piece of legislation at the time, it would constitute a potential ethical lapse that resonates with criticisms against the stimulus and ballooning deficits.

President Obama is still being asked about Solyndra.  Obama still supports a healthier, cleaner environment policy.   As it turns out, the people involved in Solyndra backed Obama throughout his fundraising.  When Obama was elected, he made a push for the loan to be granted. The price of clean energy subsidies in general have fallen over the years and that makes it possible to sell at more competitive prices.  People are more cautious over any big tax breaks now because of the Solyndra scandal.  These newer companies are saying the breaks they seek will only apply to the businesses and it will bring in new jobs in an economy that doesn’t have any.

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

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

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-18/news/ct-met-kass-0918-20110918_1_solyndra-loan-guarantee-obama-fundraisers-obama-white-house

 

Get those “deniers” out of here..

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Global warming is a growing controversy.  The controversy is made bigger because of the media coverage.  You can find the coverage in the more popular media outlets than actual science literature.  In polls, you can see that about 84% of scientists will say that global warming is caused by humans, less than half of the public will agree.  Just two years ago the UK BBC conducted a poll and found that global warming skepticism is on the rise.

There are some people in pretty high positions that are in denial.  Some of the big names include Donald Trump, Ted Nugent, weather broadcasters, and even architects.

Climate change denial differs from skepticism, which is essential for good science. Almost two decades after the issue became one of global concern, the ‘big’ debate over climate change is over. There are now no credible scientific skeptics challenging the underlying scientific theory, or the broad projections, of climate change. The relationships between industry-funded denial and public climate change skepticism have at times been compared to earlier efforts by the tobacco industry to undermine what is now widely accepted scientific evidence relating to the dangers of secondhand smoke, or even linked as a direct continuation of these earlier financial relationships. Aside from private industry groups, climate change denial has also been alleged regarding the statements of elected officials.

It is believed that humans are the reason global warming exist and that is probably why some people are in denial.

They argue that the climates have changed before, but informed scientists will say that the climate reacts to what forces it to change at the time and at this time, it is humans that are the dominant force.  We are the ones causing global warming. The deniers will say that its “not that bad”.  The scientists will say that it is negatively effecting agriculture, health, and the overall environment more than it could positively.

More of What they say….

‘Skeptical Science’ lists a bunch of arguments made by global warming deniers:

Climate has changed before.

It’s the sun.

It’s not bad.

There is no consensus.

It’s cooling.

Models are not reliable.

Temperature record is unreliable.

Animals and plants can adapt.

Oceans are cooling.

It’s a natural cycle.

 

Why won’t deniers just believe that their is Global warming and it’s happening. Just get over it.

 

Sources:

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

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/conservationists/talk-global-warming-deniers.htm

http://hamptonroads.com/2012/02/global-warming%E2%80%99s-deniers-dead-enders

 

Shutting Down the Power Plan….

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The Indian Point nuclear plant in Buchanan, N.Y., has been a major source of power to New York City and its northern suburbs since the first reactor went into operation in 1962. But the plant, which is now owned by Entergy, has encountered a string of accidents and mishaps since its beginnings, and has appeared on the federal list of the nation’s worst nuclear power plants.

Entergy Corp., the owners of Indian Point, argue that it is safe, built to withstand a magnitude six earthquake, which is far greater than any predicted earthquakes in the region. Entergy Corp. is asking the Nuclear Regulator Commission (NRC) to renew the power plant license for another 20 years of operation, as Indian Point’s Unit Two and Unit Three licenses will expire in 2013 and 2015, respectively.

Clearwater and the DEC are supporting the re-evaluation in hope that Indian Point will be closed and de-commissioned. There are health and environmental effects, though minute compared to those in Japan, which result from the leaking of radioactive material. In 2010, for instance, the New York DEC charged Entergy Corp. with killing almost a billion fish — some of which are on the endangered species list — by polluting the Hudson River as it circulated water. Although the threat of a large- scale nuclear disaster is more evident now, there always has been and always will be the lingering possibility that something will go very wrong.

Some argue that the pros of nuclear power far out-weigh the cons.

As nuclear power plants produce around 20 percent of the energy in the U.S., something has to be done with the resulting waste. Hot, radioactive fuel rods that are no longer powerful enough to be used by the plants after a few years are stored in pools that cool down the rods and protect the environmentfrom radioactivity. Where do they go from there?

While the debate continues, nuclear power is not something many will give up on when combating climate change, although the obvious answer would be to invest in safer types of renewable energy. It is not reason to turn back towards fossil fuels; there are consequences either way.

MORE PROS & CONS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

http://theenergycollective.com/pmlydon/78423/indian-point-nuclear-plant-unsafe

http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Indian%20Point%20Nuclear%20Power%20Plant

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/03/indian_point_nuclear_plant_cuomo.php

http://energy.aol.com/2011/12/29/is-indian-point-nuclear-plant-safe-for-another-20-years/

 

Tom Vales presentation

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Tom Vales a fellow professor at Suffolk came in to give us a presentation. He showed us alternative energy sources and other forms of energy. Tom holds annual presentations for electrical light shows to be presented and along with his fellow buddies, does experiments and tricks-but he remembers to wear his ear plugs because the crackling is so loud it could even damage your hearing. The four models he focused on: Jean Peltier’s thermoelectric cooling method, the hot-air engine, the Piezo effect, and the Mendocino motor.

Vales lectured us on was the Peltier effect. Peltier made an astounding discovery when he “joined copper wire and bismouth wire together and connected, then to a battery.” While one of “junctions of the two wires” got hot, the other got cold. Like this he created the effect that could power a low efficient refrigerator. The principle that is most important about this experiment is that “In essence, the Peltier effect shows that electricity can cause a heat  difference at the junction of two different metals connected together.” Vales told us this is what beer coolers essentially use as a function to keep beers cool.

Further, we learned about Nikola Tesla and the Tesla coil. (http://www.teslasociety.com/teslacoil.htm), give alittle info on Tesla coil.

“The Tesla coil is one of Nikola Tesla’s most famous inventions. It is essentially a high-frequency air-core transformer. It takes the output from a 120vAC to several kilovolt transformer & driver circuit and steps it up to an extremely high voltage. Voltages can get to be well above 1,000,000 volts and are discharged in the form of electrical arcs. Tesla himself got arcs up to 100,000,000 volts, but I don’t think that has been duplicated by anybody else. Tesla coils are unique in the fact that they create extremely powerful electrical fields. Large coils have been known to wirelessly light up florescent lights up to 50 feet away, and because of the fact that it is an electric field that goes directly into the light and doesn’t use the electrodes, even burned-out florescent lights will glow.”

I liked Mr. Vales presentation because it showed me a different way of thinking about sustainable energy instead of just thinking in terms of solar panels and wind turbines.

MIT Fusion Lab Tour

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Most people in Cambridge don’t even know that one of the leading fusion experiments in the world is running a few yards away from their daily commute down Mass Ave.  Even fewer will ever have the unique opportunity to tour such a rare facility.  I and my classmates got our own very special tour of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center where they study plasma for energy research.  My favorite was the Alcator C-Mod tokamak experiment to observe the latest progress in an international effort to make controlled nuclear fusion possible. Fusion is so puzzling, intriguing, and valuable to our present and future that MIT has devoted an entire laboratory to exploring it.

Following the tour we had a discussion of the current state of nuclear energy and innovations shaping its future.  What are the ramifications of the recent incident at Japan’s Fukushima reactor? How will this affect the discussions on fission and fusion energy by forcing the nuclear discussion back in to the spotlight. We entered the Control room and this is where it gets more exciting. You could see all the techinical things going on and they even ran a test so we can see for ourselves.

Even what could be called mainstream fusion techniques still draw skepticism, but it’s easy to see why people find it so compelling. The magnetic nuclear fusion studied at MIT uses an abundant energy source (a form of hydrogen found in seawater), power plants would pack a lot of energy in a much smaller footprint than solar or wind, and any radioactive material could be handled relatively easily. The waste from today’s nuclear power plants, which split atoms (nuclear fission) to get usable energy, should have storage designed for tens of thousands of years while fusion would need 50-year repositories.

Devoted to nuclear fusion, the science of fusing atoms together to create energy. Although it’s largely outside the daily discussions on energy, fusion is still being actively pursued. There are other types of fusion being studied, but a tour of the facility introduced me to the fundamentals of magnetic fusion and some of the technical challenges.

 

Pictured here is the blue cylinder-shaped test reactor. Inside is a doughnut-shaped vessel measuring about 1 meter across in the middle. Researchers are able to fuse two hydrogen atoms to make helium but only for a few seconds. An interesting side note is that only a few blocks away is MIT’s nuclear research reactor built at the dawn of the atomic age to study nuclear fission, or splitting atoms to produce energy.

I had a great time during the tour, plus it’s always great wgen you get to learn something new for a change.