Well, as promised, I'm hopping back on the horse, and I'm going to tackle yet another source of alternative energy, but before we begin, I'd like to start off with a brief anecdote, mostly because I like to say "anecdote."
Farmer Billy of Reynolds, Indiana wakes up on a bright summer morning and goes out to check out his farm. The corn looks quite...corny this season! However, only some of it will actually be eaten. A large share of the crop will end up going into his gas tank. Next he checks on his cows, and woah buddy does it smell ripe in that barn. But Farmer Billy doesn't mind the stench, because that odiferous animal waste is just pure cash money for him. Next, he hops in his truck to drive into town. Along the way, he passes several big honkin' windmills in the fields, just a'spinnin' away. Finally, he gets to his lovely town of Reynolds and drives up to the gas station. But wait! He's not really buying gas at all, now is he? Oh no, he's pulling right on up to that E85 pump. After the gas station, he picks up some lovely tomatoes at the farmer's market and heads on back to his farm, ready to start the day by farming not just for corn 'n' soybeans, but for energy.
So my little story might seem a tad far-fetched, but in reality, this is actually happening in Reynolds. This tiny town, also known as Biotown, USA, is almost completely self-sufficient on renewable energy grown right within the town itself. From ethanol made from the corn to methane and natural gas from pig manure, alternative energy has become the cash crop of Reynolds, Indiana.
Many of the aforementioned energy sources fall under the overarching description known as Biomass. Biomass is any renewable material that comes from living organisms or recently living organisms that can be used to create energy or other substances. Fossil Fuels are not included because, though they are derived from organic matter, they are truly formed by a long and gradual geological process. Biomass does include anything from burning logs to ethanol-based fuel. It's a huge, overarching type of renewable energy, so I'll get to breaking it all down for you right here.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
The Final Blog Post
Sort of. Though this is the last post that will be counted for my English project, I kind of hope to continue this blog afterwards. We'll just see how that plays out. Anyway, without further ado, it appears I have some questions to answer.
Well, dear reader, we've been adventuring on this blog together for the past several weeks, and now I must decide what kind of "mind" I am. Well, based solely on this blogging project, I would say it's fairly evident that I am a "synthetic mind." This means that I like to take information from lots of sources, learn about something, put it all together, and explain it in terms that both myself and other people can understand. So far, we've delved into things as simple as wind and water, to the mildly more complex solar power and hydrogen fuel cells, to subatomic physics, and even the completely and utterly abstract concept of dark matter. However, I like to think that over the course of our blogging adventure, I've done a fairly decent job at explaining everything. Furthermore, incredible amounts of research had to go into every blog post, and I really had to decipher massive articles and compress them down into just a couple paragraphs. Granted, they were still huge entries, and while I'm sure that sometimes it got to be a drag, reading these ridiculously long entries all about that nerdy sciencey junk, perhaps you were mildly entertained by my brief anecdotes, Rasta Fish, and lovely videos of Spanish Celtic metal, tactical nukes, and adorable kittens.
Secondly, I need to talk about a couple of things that I exemplify. Through this very blog, I've exhibited curiosity and a thirst for learning. I've done literally hours of research in order to compile everything into an ordered mess and put it right up here on this blog, just for your viewing pleasure. In the process, I've discovered a lot about science, the world, and myself. Secondly, I've experimented with some new ideas. Earlier, I made a blog post specifically aimed at "dabbling in the fantastic" and literally discussing and explaining new ideas, either from the science and engineering community, or straight from my own brain. I've used this very blog to talk with other people through comments, or outside communication, where they can ask me questions and really control the direction that my blog takes. In the future, as my following hopefully increases, maybe the reader response will start to play an even larger role in this blog. Lastly, I've asked a few provocative questions. Some of them are just cute little rhetorical devices, used to break up the flow of my entries, and make it seem like an informal chat, rather than some dry research thesis. However, through my blog, I've also asked The Big Question: the very question that the science community seems to be scurrying to answer. How are we going to survive in a world without oil? I'll be the first to say that I haven't found the answer. However, through my research, I now adamantly believe that the answer is definitely out there somewhere. We just have to find it.
Lastly, I've got to talk about what I learned. Obviously, I learned a lot. I had a vague understanding of some of the stuff I talked about: hydroelectricity and wind are pretty simple, and I learned about dark matter in my Physics class, but other than that, virtually all of the information and facts I have here, I learned through research for this very project. I've learned so much about alternative energy, how it works, why we need it, and all of the different types. It's been really interesting to learn all about sources of energy, and hopefully I'll be able to continue learning — and teaching you, dear reader — even more through this blog. Good Night, everyone. It's been a pleasure.
Well, dear reader, we've been adventuring on this blog together for the past several weeks, and now I must decide what kind of "mind" I am. Well, based solely on this blogging project, I would say it's fairly evident that I am a "synthetic mind." This means that I like to take information from lots of sources, learn about something, put it all together, and explain it in terms that both myself and other people can understand. So far, we've delved into things as simple as wind and water, to the mildly more complex solar power and hydrogen fuel cells, to subatomic physics, and even the completely and utterly abstract concept of dark matter. However, I like to think that over the course of our blogging adventure, I've done a fairly decent job at explaining everything. Furthermore, incredible amounts of research had to go into every blog post, and I really had to decipher massive articles and compress them down into just a couple paragraphs. Granted, they were still huge entries, and while I'm sure that sometimes it got to be a drag, reading these ridiculously long entries all about that nerdy sciencey junk, perhaps you were mildly entertained by my brief anecdotes, Rasta Fish, and lovely videos of Spanish Celtic metal, tactical nukes, and adorable kittens.
Secondly, I need to talk about a couple of things that I exemplify. Through this very blog, I've exhibited curiosity and a thirst for learning. I've done literally hours of research in order to compile everything into an ordered mess and put it right up here on this blog, just for your viewing pleasure. In the process, I've discovered a lot about science, the world, and myself. Secondly, I've experimented with some new ideas. Earlier, I made a blog post specifically aimed at "dabbling in the fantastic" and literally discussing and explaining new ideas, either from the science and engineering community, or straight from my own brain. I've used this very blog to talk with other people through comments, or outside communication, where they can ask me questions and really control the direction that my blog takes. In the future, as my following hopefully increases, maybe the reader response will start to play an even larger role in this blog. Lastly, I've asked a few provocative questions. Some of them are just cute little rhetorical devices, used to break up the flow of my entries, and make it seem like an informal chat, rather than some dry research thesis. However, through my blog, I've also asked The Big Question: the very question that the science community seems to be scurrying to answer. How are we going to survive in a world without oil? I'll be the first to say that I haven't found the answer. However, through my research, I now adamantly believe that the answer is definitely out there somewhere. We just have to find it.
Lastly, I've got to talk about what I learned. Obviously, I learned a lot. I had a vague understanding of some of the stuff I talked about: hydroelectricity and wind are pretty simple, and I learned about dark matter in my Physics class, but other than that, virtually all of the information and facts I have here, I learned through research for this very project. I've learned so much about alternative energy, how it works, why we need it, and all of the different types. It's been really interesting to learn all about sources of energy, and hopefully I'll be able to continue learning — and teaching you, dear reader — even more through this blog. Good Night, everyone. It's been a pleasure.
Death, Destroyer of Worlds
Wind and Water are useful and all, and it was quite useful to include a blog post about them, but to be quite perfectly honest, they bore me to tears.
Nuclear power is so much more elegant, don't you agree? Well, whether you're Monty Burns or a tree hugging hippie, nobody can really deny the fact that nuclear power just gets the job done, and thus it is the subject of tonight's blog entry.
Let's start with a history lesson. Ernest Rutherford first split the atom in 1919, but the awesome power of the atom was not really shown until World War Two, in a lovely city called Hiroshima. I hear they put out the fire sometime last week. Anyway, the moral of the story is that nuclear power has been developing ever since. In 1951, nuclear energy was first harnessed in a useful form to create electricity (not to say that decimating an entire city isn't useful in some cases, but that's irrelevant). Nuclear power seemed to be on the rise for most of the second half of the twentieth century, fueled by events like The Oil Crisis of 1973, but gradually, the public began to turn against it, out of fear of disasters like Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl Disaster.
Fun Fact: parts of Chernobyl are still too radioactive to sustain human life. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy, eh? So yeah, the mildly vivid image of the video above occurring in one's backyard turned the public against nuclear power, and the industry was crippled for decades. However, nowadays, the public is turning against fossil fuels due to constant fear of global warming and carbon emissions, and nuclear power is starting to like an awful lot more attractive. At least to me. Regardless, most industry experts say that the nuclear industry is going to rise in the immediate future, as a demand for cleaner energy rises.
The following is the best explanation I can give for the process of harnessing radioactive material in order to create electricity. 99.99% of the nuclear reactors in the world work off the process of nuclear fission. First, you get what's known as a "fissile material," which is literally just a substance capable of performing fission, generally Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239. When a neutron is forced into the nucleus of a single atom of the fissile material, the atom splits, releasing two smaller atoms, energy, and more neutrons. Theoretically, these neutrons would go out and be absorbed by other atoms of the fissile material, thus causing the reaction to continue on, and increase in frequency exponentially. This is essentially what happens in the video at the top. 
when the rate of fission is not controlled, a massive explosion occurs. Now, as I already said, explosions are nice, but are not very useful for creating electricity that humans can use in daily life. Thus, neutron poisons are used in order to absorb some of the neutrons produced, allowing the reaction to occur at a slow, constant rate, or neutron moderators are used to slow the neutrons down. So, the reactor contains this reaction and allows it to proceed at a fairly constant and easily controlled rate. But...it gets really hot, really fast. However! the process by which the reactor is cooled is exactly the same process by which the electricity is produced. A coolant, typically just plain ol' water, is pumped to the reactor, where it is heated and generally evaporates, causing steam. The steam then proceeds out and spins a massive turbine (it's interesting how often these things seem to show up), thus creating electricity. The steam then leaves via a smokestack as perfectly harmless water vapor. Pretty simple, right?
Wrong. Whoever said rocket science is the epitome of a mentally-demanding occupation was a fool; sub-atomic physics is infinitely more complex. But just in case you thought that was easy, fission is only half the fun. Well...not half. 99.99%, but that last .01% is pretty darn important too. I am speaking, of course, of fusion. Nuclear fusion is becoming increasingly more important in the nuclear power industry, mostly because it theoretically can operate without all those negative aspects of fission power, such as massive barrels of glowing toxic ooze, and the occasional meltdown or two. So what is fusion? It's exactly what it sounds like, the opposite of fission: rather than splitting a really big atom into smaller ones, it takes smaller atoms and squishes them into a big one. The theory is that if you take one "light" atom and another "light" atom and push them close together, the "residual strong force" between their nuclei will pull them together, fusing them together into a single atom whose mass is slightly less than the sum of the two single atoms' masses. Now, I just used a lot of quote marks and italics, so I'll go over that a little better. A "light" atom is defined as "any atom that is less massive than Iron-56." That's pretty straight-forward. Now "residual strong force" is a tad more complex. Basically, there are four forces that govern the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force. The fourth one, also known as the residual strong force, is the strongest of the four, hundreds of times more powerful than electromagnetism, and millions more than gravity. Essentially, it is the force that holds the protons and neutrons together in the nucleus. In theory, if you get two nuclei close enough, this force would cause them to fuse together into a single nucleus. However, if you'll recall, I said "slightly less than the sum." If you're not following my math lingo, I just said that two plus two is three and a half. So what happened to the missing mass? There's an equation that many people know but few understand that tells us exactly that:
E=mc2. This equation states that the energy of a mass, simply from being mass is equal to that mass times the speed of light, in meters per second, squared. The missing "one-half" just turns into pure energy. Now, the mass of an atom is really really tiny. An atom of hydrogen is just about 1.6E-27 kilograms. Not all that impressive. However, that other part of the equation, c2 is roughly 9E16 meters per second. So in the end, depending on the material used it generally evens out pretty well. Anyway, that's the super fantastic subatomic process that goes on, but in the end it turns out the same way, energy is released, the reactor is cooled, steam turns a turbine, ????, PROFIT, and repeat.
Now, if you're like me, your brain is probably hurting a bit right now. Let's watch a video of an adorable kitten until we feel better.
Okay, let's move on. Nuclear power supplies about 15% of the world's electricity, falling just behind hydroelectricity at 20%, and trailing steeply behind fossil fuels. However, it is starting to rise. While nuclear fission is technically not a renewable source of energy, as U-235 only accounts for 1% of the naturally-occurring Uranium on the planet, in terms of overall pollution and environmental impact, nuclear power is really cleaner and greener than fossil fuels, and is one of the few forms of energy that is actually more efficient than oil. New research and technology is being developed right now that aims to make nuclear power more effective, less wasteful, and all around safer for humankind to use. Furthermore, the recent developments in the field of fusion energy could change the face of the world's energy forever. Fusion can be performed with naturally occurring hydrogen, the most abundant substance in the universe, and produces little, if any, nuclear waste. In my opinion, I think in the next years, possibly the next decade, we could see huge advancements in nuclear power that will change how humans live all across the planet.
Nuclear power is so much more elegant, don't you agree? Well, whether you're Monty Burns or a tree hugging hippie, nobody can really deny the fact that nuclear power just gets the job done, and thus it is the subject of tonight's blog entry.
Let's start with a history lesson. Ernest Rutherford first split the atom in 1919, but the awesome power of the atom was not really shown until World War Two, in a lovely city called Hiroshima. I hear they put out the fire sometime last week. Anyway, the moral of the story is that nuclear power has been developing ever since. In 1951, nuclear energy was first harnessed in a useful form to create electricity (not to say that decimating an entire city isn't useful in some cases, but that's irrelevant). Nuclear power seemed to be on the rise for most of the second half of the twentieth century, fueled by events like The Oil Crisis of 1973, but gradually, the public began to turn against it, out of fear of disasters like Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl Disaster.
Fun Fact: parts of Chernobyl are still too radioactive to sustain human life. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy, eh? So yeah, the mildly vivid image of the video above occurring in one's backyard turned the public against nuclear power, and the industry was crippled for decades. However, nowadays, the public is turning against fossil fuels due to constant fear of global warming and carbon emissions, and nuclear power is starting to like an awful lot more attractive. At least to me. Regardless, most industry experts say that the nuclear industry is going to rise in the immediate future, as a demand for cleaner energy rises.The following is the best explanation I can give for the process of harnessing radioactive material in order to create electricity. 99.99% of the nuclear reactors in the world work off the process of nuclear fission. First, you get what's known as a "fissile material," which is literally just a substance capable of performing fission, generally Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239. When a neutron is forced into the nucleus of a single atom of the fissile material, the atom splits, releasing two smaller atoms, energy, and more neutrons. Theoretically, these neutrons would go out and be absorbed by other atoms of the fissile material, thus causing the reaction to continue on, and increase in frequency exponentially. This is essentially what happens in the video at the top. when the rate of fission is not controlled, a massive explosion occurs. Now, as I already said, explosions are nice, but are not very useful for creating electricity that humans can use in daily life. Thus, neutron poisons are used in order to absorb some of the neutrons produced, allowing the reaction to occur at a slow, constant rate, or neutron moderators are used to slow the neutrons down. So, the reactor contains this reaction and allows it to proceed at a fairly constant and easily controlled rate. But...it gets really hot, really fast. However! the process by which the reactor is cooled is exactly the same process by which the electricity is produced. A coolant, typically just plain ol' water, is pumped to the reactor, where it is heated and generally evaporates, causing steam. The steam then proceeds out and spins a massive turbine (it's interesting how often these things seem to show up), thus creating electricity. The steam then leaves via a smokestack as perfectly harmless water vapor. Pretty simple, right?Wrong. Whoever said rocket science is the epitome of a mentally-demanding occupation was a fool; sub-atomic physics is infinitely more complex. But just in case you thought that was easy, fission is only half the fun. Well...not half. 99.99%, but that last .01% is pretty darn important too. I am speaking, of course, of fusion. Nuclear fusion is becoming increasingly more important in the nuclear power industry, mostly because it theoretically can operate without all those negative aspects of fission power, such as massive barrels of glowing toxic ooze, and the occasional meltdown or two. So what is fusion? It's exactly what it sounds like, the opposite of fission: rather than splitting a really big atom into smaller ones, it takes smaller atoms and squishes them into a big one. The theory is that if you take one "light" atom and another "light" atom and push them close together, the "residual strong force" between their nuclei will pull them together, fusing them together into a single atom whose mass is slightly less than the sum of the two single atoms' masses. Now, I just used a lot of quote marks and italics, so I'll go over that a little better. A "light" atom is defined as "any atom that is less massive than Iron-56." That's pretty straight-forward. Now "residual strong force" is a tad more complex. Basically, there are four forces that govern the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force. The fourth one, also known as the residual strong force, is the strongest of the four, hundreds of times more powerful than electromagnetism, and millions more than gravity. Essentially, it is the force that holds the protons and neutrons together in the nucleus. In theory, if you get two nuclei close enough, this force would cause them to fuse together into a single nucleus. However, if you'll recall, I said "slightly less than the sum." If you're not following my math lingo, I just said that two plus two is three and a half. So what happened to the missing mass? There's an equation that many people know but few understand that tells us exactly that:
E=mc2. This equation states that the energy of a mass, simply from being mass is equal to that mass times the speed of light, in meters per second, squared. The missing "one-half" just turns into pure energy. Now, the mass of an atom is really really tiny. An atom of hydrogen is just about 1.6E-27 kilograms. Not all that impressive. However, that other part of the equation, c2 is roughly 9E16 meters per second. So in the end, depending on the material used it generally evens out pretty well. Anyway, that's the super fantastic subatomic process that goes on, but in the end it turns out the same way, energy is released, the reactor is cooled, steam turns a turbine, ????, PROFIT, and repeat.Now, if you're like me, your brain is probably hurting a bit right now. Let's watch a video of an adorable kitten until we feel better.
Okay, let's move on. Nuclear power supplies about 15% of the world's electricity, falling just behind hydroelectricity at 20%, and trailing steeply behind fossil fuels. However, it is starting to rise. While nuclear fission is technically not a renewable source of energy, as U-235 only accounts for 1% of the naturally-occurring Uranium on the planet, in terms of overall pollution and environmental impact, nuclear power is really cleaner and greener than fossil fuels, and is one of the few forms of energy that is actually more efficient than oil. New research and technology is being developed right now that aims to make nuclear power more effective, less wasteful, and all around safer for humankind to use. Furthermore, the recent developments in the field of fusion energy could change the face of the world's energy forever. Fusion can be performed with naturally occurring hydrogen, the most abundant substance in the universe, and produces little, if any, nuclear waste. In my opinion, I think in the next years, possibly the next decade, we could see huge advancements in nuclear power that will change how humans live all across the planet.
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