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In 2009 Obama made a promise that by 2020 the United States will reduce green house gas emissions by 17%, in order to take steps towards reversing climate change. In the President’s Climate Action plan he spoke about three major goals and also specific initiatives  to help successfully reach each goal.

1. Cut Carbon Pollution in America:

In order to protect the health of the American people the amount of carbon emission into the air needs to be controlled by the government. In 2012, the levels of carbon emissions in the United States fell to the lowest level that had been seen in the United States for over twenty years. If the United States moves to making our own clean energy, the economy will also boost as jobs will be created and energy bills will be reduced.

A. Increasing Fuel Economy Standards- 

The Obama administration for the first time every set fuel standards for heavy duty vehicles, which are currently the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions within the transportation sector. The administration approximated that these set standards will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 270 million metric tons and save 530 million barrels of oil.

 

2. Prepare the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change: 

Even though steps to prevent climate change are being enforced, Obama plans on preparing the United States for impacts that climate change will have on us. His administration has promised to create stronger roads,  shorelines, and bridges so peoples homes can be better protected in case of severe weather which occurs because of climate change.

A. Building Stronger and Safer Communities and Infrastructure- 

Many places around the United States have already started preparing for changes that have occurred due to climate change. Hospitals for example need to have a capacity to serve patients during heat waves which will become more frequent. The President will direct specific federal agencies to help in determining what investments are the better choice for the community in regards to climate change. These investments can be made through private and federal programs. Obama wants to direct the agencies to set stands for new infrastructure considering possible future impacts.

 

3. Lead International Efforts to Combat Global Climate Change and Prepare for its Impacts: 

The United States will help to create a global plan against climate change. There is no way one country alone will be able to solve this problem, so Obama plans on joining with other countries to create a strong action plan to fix what has occurred and stop it from continuing to occur.

A. Unlocking Long Term Investments In clean Energy Innovation- 

One specific initiative of Obama’s first goal is for the government to continue investing in innovation to help the United States use clean energy. Obama wants the government to continue funding: research, development, and deployment, of clean energy. He wants to achieve this by increasing funding to $7.9 billion which is about a 30% increase across all of the agencies.

 

Stirling Heat Engine: 

The Stirling engine was invented in 1816 by Robert Stirling who wanted to create a safer alternative to the steam engine. The boilers off of steam engines constantly exploded due to the high pressure and low quality materials used to create them. The Stirling engine is a heat engine that operates by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gasses. The gasses used inside the engine never leave the engine, and therefore there are no exhaust valves. The Stirling heat engine has had many uses in history, for example: to run refrigerators, fans, cars, and sewing machines.

Modern Day Uses: 

The Stirling engine is not used as widely in modern day technology, but it is still used.

– Solar Power Generation: Because it can convert solar energy to electricity more efficiently.

-Marine Engines: Swedish shipbuilders have built around eight successful submarines using the stirling engine.

Peltier Device: 

A Peltier device is a heat pump that uses the Peltier effect to move heat. The Peltier effect states that heat is emitted or absorbed when a voltage is applied to two connected materials. The Peltier device creates a different temperature on each part, one part warm and one cool. The air conditioners that we use everyday work in the same general way as a Peltier device.

 

 

http://www.mpoweruk.com/stirling_engine.htm

http://stirlingshop.com/html/applications_.html

http://www.activecool.com/technotes/thermoelectric.html

Geothermal energy is using the heat from earth, which is clean and sustainable. Geothermal energy can be derived from the shallow ground, hot water, and hot rock found behind earth’s surfaces.

During the 20th century, Iceland has went from being one of Europe’s poorest countries  to one, where almost all the energy used is derived from renewable resources. In 2014, 66% of Iceland’s primary energy came from geothermal sources. Iceland has the perfect geological position, because it is one of the most dynamic volcano regions in the world, the moving plates bring heat to the surface. The geographical volcanic position and the research done by scientists and specialists to use this geological advantage, has made Iceland the leader in geothermal energy use.

Iceland has no national grid, because they get their energy simply from drilling into the ground. To generate electricity through geothermal energy the power plants need to drill only a few kilometers under ground. In Iceland this heat exists naturally because of their location and the hot steam present due to volcanic activity. Almost 90% of the people in Iceland rely on geothermal heating. The abundanant sources of hot underground water allow for this country to highly rely on geothermal techniques for energy and heat.

There are many advantages to geothermal energy. Geothermal energy has very low costs, typically saving one about 80% compared to fossil fuels. One of the main advantages, is that there is no pollution being created, which leads to a cleaner environment and reduced global warming.

 

 

http://www.nea.is/geothermal/

http://www.icelandontheweb.com/articles-on-iceland/nature/geology/geothermal-heat

http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/Advantages_GeothermalEnergy.php

As people are becoming more concerned with the environment, companies are also becoming more concerned with creating objects that are environmentally friendly because they want to keep their consumers happy and stay in business. One invention that is becoming more popular is electric cars. Electric cars are powered by electric engines and they emit less carbon emissions. One example of an electric car is Tesla.

Tesla: 

Tesla is an American car company that was founded in 2003 and that has created an electric car. Tesla launched the Roadster, their first car in 2008 and sold over 2,400 of them. This car could run for 245 miles with a fully charged battery. Tesla has released three other vehicles since then and now has more than 50,000 vehicles on the road worldwide. Tesla vehicles are produced in California, and is expanding in other areas as well.

How it works? 

Battery electric vehicles run by using the electricity that is stored in a battery pack. The batteries need to be recharged constantly because these cars are powered entirely by electricity. Because of this they do not produce pollution through the tailpipe but some pollution is produced when the electricity (that runs the cars) is generated. The batteries are recharged using grid electricity either from a charging unit or a wall socket. Tesla cars can be charged at home so owners do not have to spend any money on gasoline. Tesla also has Supercharger networks throughout North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific so people can charge as they are on the road.

Electric Charging Stations:

Tesla has created its own charging system for their cars. The plugs for Tesla cars have a very slim design and that plug can be supported by any outlet. Tesla provides each car with an adaptor for a household plug and also one for the J1772 plug for public Level 2 stations. Tesla has its own version of a Level 3 charging station which they call a supercharger. This supercharger station can fill up a whole battery in less than an hour.

Charging an electric car with an outlet like one found at home that has only 120 volts of electricity would take about 15 hours to charge the battery from empty to enough for 75 miles. Because this would result in a huge inconvenience for people who are driving far, electric charging stations exist. The majority of public stations are level 2, which have 240 volt outlets. it would take about 8 hours to charge a car in full at one of these stations. Level 3 charging stations have 480 volts and will charge the battery from 0% to 80% in around thirty minutes. These charging stations are high-tech and they include pins for data to allow the charger to communicate with the car. The car is able to communicate with the charger, so that the charger knows how much more power the battery needs at any time during the charging process.

 

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/how-do-battery-electric-cars-work#.ViUVCtY-DR0

http://www.teslamotors.com/about

http://www.cnet.com/news/slow-fast-and-faster-where-to-charge-electric-cars/

 

 

 

 

In Class Activity:

Our task for this lab was to shake the hand powered generator (a tube with a magnet in it) in order to correlate the number of shakes, with the time interval, and the voltage. We shook the generator for thirty seconds at a specific rate five times. Each time we had to count the number of shakes and the computer program calculated the voltage after each second. We then calculated the sum of the squares of the voltages and plotted them in a graph to see the correlation which resulted in a linear curve.

 

The higher the number of shakes in the thirty second interval the higher the sum of the square of the voltages. The two are correlated in a linear way, in which as one increases so does the other. This experiment supports Faraday’s law that the greater the change in the magnetic flux the greater the voltages created.

 

Electricity is vital to our daily life, without electricity we would not be able to function as a society. There are many different ways electricity can be produced. Three major ways electricity is generated is with coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants.

Coal Fired Plants- The first part is to break up the pieces of coal so it become likes a powder. After, this powdered coal is put into a combustion unit where it heats and eventually burns. The heat released from this burning coal generates the steam that is used to spin the turbines which produce the electricity. Coal is one of the largest air polluters in the United States, however it is the largest producer of electricity.

Natural Gas- This process includes the burning of natural gases in order to create electricity. Natural gas is first pumped into the turbine where it is mixed with air and burned. All of the heat in the enclosed gas turbine results in the spinning of the turbine which converts some of the heat energy into electrical energy. Natural gas is the cleanest and most efficient of all fossil fuels. When burning natural gas a lot of carbon dioxide is emitted.

Nuclear Power Plants- Just like natural gas and coal fired plants nuclear power plants also use steam to generate power. Nuclear energy is created when uranium atoms are split in a process called fission. The fission process releases energy that is used to make steam and that steam is used to power the turbine. Nuclear energy is a very low pollutant way of creating energy, however it is very expensive.

All three of these major electricity generating techniques are very similar in the process that is taken to create the electricity. The only differences are what is burned in order to create that electricity. Each of the three ways has its own benefits and risks of using it as the main source.

 

http://www.rst2.edu/ties/acidrain/IEcoal/how.html

https://www.cpsenergy.com/en/about-us/programs-services/energy-generation/natural-gas.html

http://www.triplepundit.com/special/energy-options-pros-and-cons/natural-gas-pros-cons/

The purpose of this experiment was to test Newton’s second law. To test his law we set mass on a pulley and used power (force) to pull the mass. We had to use the computer program to change the power and the mass to see what affects these changes would have on acceleration. First we kept the mass fixed at 0.23 grams and changed the force five times to see what pattern would occur. We were able to conclude that with a fixed mass and a decreasing force, acceleration also decreased . Next we kept the force fixed and we minimized the mass with each of the 5 trials. With this we concluded that with a constant force and a smaller mass acceleration increased.

 

 

Robot Speed Experiment:

After learning how to assemble the robot two weeks ago, last Fridays experiment involved working with the program to measure the distance the car travelled with certain timing power settings. The first task that we had was to measure the circumference of the wheel. Next, we had to put the robot next to a ruler in order to measure the distance that the robot traveled to compare it to the distance recorded by the program. For each setting of power and time we had to do three trials in order to compare each trial to one another. After, experimenting with three different settings and having three trials each setting we had to calculate the margin of error comparing the distance that we observed using the calculator and the distance that the program calculated.

Looking at the margin of error it seems that we made a mistake with the way we conducted the experiment. The mistake might have been where we put the front wheels of the robot and because of this we were not able to correctly measure the actual distance using the calculator. Our margins or error are pretty high throughout the experiment.

Fracking: 

Fracking is a type of drilling that involves drilling into earth and directing a high pressured mix of water,sand, and chemicals at a rock. This high pressure fractures the rock so that the gas inside of the rock is released. The practice of fracking has been occurring more in the United States in the recent years.

How is fracking done? 

A well is drilled vertically from the surface, then that well is encased in steel to protect any leaking from occurring to the ground water. Once the depth reaches the point where natural gas or oil exists, the well is curved and then they drill horizontally across the rock surface. The pressure of the water/chemicals that are released through that well is strong enough to fracture the rocks and to create cracks where oil and gas can flow from. Once the gas and oil are trapped they are pumped back to the surface. The liquid that is pumped back includes contaminants such as: heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and toxins. This waste is stored at the fracking site then disposed of at off site wastewater treatment facilities.

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-14432401

Potential environmental impacts of fracking: 

A pollution incident could occur because of a bad fracking process. During the process, chemicals can escape and contaminate the underground water around the fracking site. Research published by Duke University in 2011 showed that drinking water near fracking wells had levels of methane that were very close to what the U.S considers “dangerous and requires urgent action”. Fracking also uses very large amounts of water and the water has to be transported to the site. There are a high number of trucks that are used to transport this water, therefore  just the transportation of the water is badly impacting the environment. A third potential environmental threat is that the process could cause small earthquakes near the site.

Pros:

– Allows access to resources of oil and gas that are very difficult to reach.

– Has brought down gas prices in the U.S.

– Has boosted oil production in the U.S.

Cons:

– Can destroy drinking water supplies.

-Can pollute air.

-Contributes to the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

– Encourages reliance on fossil fuels.

– Distracting energy firms/ government from investing in renewable sources of energy, because they rely on fracking as a solution.

 

http://corporateeurope.org/climate-and-energy/2013/05/right-say-no-eu-canada-trade-agreement-threatens-fracking-bans

 

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-14432401

https://nicholas.duke.edu/cgc/pnas2011.pdf

http://www.livescience.com/34464-what-is-fracking.html

http://www.what-is-fracking.com