Month: March 2013

The Fukushima disaster that occurred in Japan was only the second time every the international nuclear event scale rated a nuclear disaster as a 7 on a scale from 1 to 7.  The disaster was caused on march 11^th 2011 by a 9.0 earthquake that hit Japan, followed by a tsunami.  When the earthquake hit it shut down the power to reactors 1, 2, and 3.  When nuclear reactors shut down they must be cooled for days after in order to make sure a meltdown does not occur, so alternative energy systems were used to keep the reactors cool.  About 50 minutes later, a tidal wave caused by the earthquake also hit the nuclear plant and caused the alternative energy sources to be flooded and stop working.  Because the reactors were not being kept cool, they began to melt down shortly after due to the excess of heat created when the reaction occurs.

The Japanese government immediately evacuated the area 10km away from the power plant, and told people between 10km and 30km to not go outside and to stay in their houses until further notice.  This caused widespread panic throughout the region.  Only hours later when the owners of the plant decided to let it flood with sea water was the meltdown stopped.  They did not do this immediately because they knew it would cause millions of dollars of damage to expensive equipment used.

Since the disaster, all but two of Japans nuclear reactors have been shut down due to safety issues.  This is a huge problem for the country of japan because they were almost completely energy independent due to their extensive nuclear power generation.  Now they need to import much of their energy from other countries because they do not have enough natural resources to harvest energy from to become independent another way.  The disaster in Japan caused an outcry in many other countries to slow down their own nuclear programs.  After the disaster public opinion in the United States about nuclear power shifted from about 50/50 to 40/60, making it less popular.  It also hit stock markets around the world hard for companies that relied on nuclear energy to conduct business.  Since then many new regulations have been proposed all over the world to make sure nuclear energy production is kept safer.

In Germany, the government is hoping to have 80% of its energy to be attained from renewable sources such as biomass, wind and solar by the year of 2050. As of right now they are contributing to 25% of the country’s electric supply. Germany is getting rid of their fossil fuel stations. Germany’s CO2 emissions dropped a total of 2.4% recently because they are trying to stay away from nuclear power. For now, they are very close to reaching their goal of having 35% renewal energy. They are at 25% currently.

38% of Renewable energy came from wind in Germany, and 16% came from solar energy.

While Germany is trying very hard to get renewable energy, the prices are rising. The people are not happy with hoe much it costs them to buy renewable energy. The reason fossil fuels are so popular.

But Germany is determined to be a change in the world.

*Updates to come soon!

source> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/26/german-renewable-energy-emission-co2

With the help of a solar cell, a flashlight, a ruler and our computer we were taught how solar energy works and what effects its intensity. We gathered data that told us the light intensity and the voltage output of the solar cell. We were told to hold the flashlight to the solar cell at 0 cm, 8cm, 15 cm and 30 cm. With the help of lab view, we collected our data, then compared voltage and distance. Later we did the same thing with different colored filters.

The more distance we added, the less voltage was present. The different colored filters that were used were yellow, pink and blue. Yellow seemed to provide the highest voltage at 0cm; .501, blue at 0cm; .443 and pink at 0cm; .413

Without a filter, here are our results.

0cm no light: .013536

0cm with light: .484397

8cm with light: .477982

15 cm with light: .46002

30cm with light: .353531

In Class we conducted an experiment that will prove Faraday’s Law to us. Faraday’s Law says that any change in the magnetic environment of a coil of wire will cause a voltage to be transferred in the coil. We used a flashlight for our experiment that had a magnet inside, and when shaken would move through a coil of wires. Kinetic energy was created when we shook the flashlight. The computer measured how much energy was created. We shook the flashlight for thirty seconds and counted the number of shakes. Later we had to use Excel to get the sum of the squares of the voltages. Unfortunately, when we thought we had sent our data of collection to us, we thought wrong. Our data was not sent in the correct file format, therefor everything was lost.

Instead I would like to present to you guys a little bit of background information on Faraday’s Law.

August 29th, 1831 marks the day Faraday had his first experiment where he worked with electromagnetic induction by wrapping two wires around opposite sides of an iron ring. Faraday thought that when the current went into one wire, a wave would go through the ring and make an effect on the other side. One wire was plugged into the galvanometer, and the other wire to the battery. A wave of electricity traveled through one wire when he connected it, and to the other when the wire was disconnected. The reaction was because of a magnetic flux that took place when the wires were connected to the batter. This was his first revelation, and later he got more. He did what we did in class, slid a magnet in between wires of coil. And he also “rotated a copper disk near the bar magnet with a sliding electrical lead”.

The United States Energy Gris is vulnerable to anyone that has weapons and knows how it works. If a terrorist attack took place on the US power Grid, according to the National Academy of Science, the attack would cause more damage then Hurricane Sandy caused. The result would be blackouts that last for months. The blackouts could cause fear in the nation, panic and also destabilize them.

“We are talking about some 170,000 miles of voltage transmission line miles fed by 2,100 high-voltage transformers delivering power to 125 million households.” Jen Alic explaining how much space it covers. These equipments are not protected by anyone. Security is expensive. The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) does not have enough funding to increase the security. The grid covers a huge territory and has important equipment that are old and not guarded properly.

Our saved up energy if very important to us and has to be taken care of properly.

For a long time, workers had to go and gather data themselves to keep the grid running efficiently. Technology has no doubt evolved. With the use of computers we have figured out how to bring utility electricity delivery systems that are called Smart Grids. Two-way communication technology and computer processing enable us to use our electricity networks to transfer electricity to people’s homes from power plants and wind farms. It uses wires, substations, transformers, switches and many other technological devices. Therefor; improving our energy efficiency.

The “grid” amounts to the networks that carry electricity from the plants where it is generated to consumers. The grid includes wires, substations, transformers, switches and much more.

“Much in the way that a “smart” phone these days means a phone with a computer in it, smart grid means “computerizing” the electric utility grid. It includes adding two-way digital communication technology to devices associated with the grid. Each device on the network can be given sensors to gather data (power meters, voltage sensors, fault detectors, etc.), plus two-way digital communication between the device in the field and the utility’s network operations center. A key feature of the smart grid is automation technology that lets the utility adjust and control each individual device or millions of devices from a central location.” (energy.gov)

This field is growing day by dad. The benefits of a smart grid are many. It will enhance our security and efficiency to collect data. We handle our solar and wind electricity better because of the smart grid. The world is getting smarter day by day.

Source> http://www.arabnews.com/protecting-fragile-us-energy-grid-0

Source>http://energy.gov/oe/technology-development/smart-grid

Source>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_grid

Source> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage