Post 10 : Summary

Our New Hope

1. Life without fossil fuel

     Since the Industrial Revolution, people on earth have tried every possible way to take advantage of fossil fuel. We have done a great job making our lives more convenient and establishing a very advanced civilization. However, the amount of fossil fuel is limited, that means someday we won't be able to live a conveneint  live like now. It seems that life will be very tough in the future, but there is a hope, green energy.  

    Seeing lots of problem caused by using fossil fuel, such us global warming, rising sea level and air pollution, I start to think about a qusetion. Where does energy come from before the discovery of  petroleum? The answer is our mighty sun!!! Green energy such as wind power, wave power and solar power all come from sun.(see this idea in post 6) The sun is estimated to live for another 5 billion years, so it is a sustainable energy source for us. Our goal is to figure out how to live a life without fossil fuel.

 

pic.1

 

 

 

2. The most promising new energy-solar power

     Among all green energy, I think solar power is the most promising one. Isn't it a brilliant thing that a cell can turn light into electricity? To support my opinion, let me show you some advantages of solar power. First, it doesn't emit any carbon dioxide which change our climate drastically. Second, it is sustainable because our sun will be there for a very very long time. Last, it is absolutly safe.

 

 

 



 

 

 

reference:

pic.1 : http://www.dcvworks.com/tag/green-energy



 

Post 9 : Germany, Country of Green Energy

Country of Green Energy

1. Solar power

    According to news, in July,2013 German solar power plants broke the record for the production of electricity. German solar power plants produced 22 gigawatts of electircity per hour! This achievement is so amazing that Germany absolutely excels at developing solar power. Take a look at the picture below. This picture shows us the world's largest photovoltaic solar park near the city of Senftenberg.

 

pic.1

 

 

 

2. Wind power

    Nowadays, there are approximately 20,000 wind power plants in Germany, and these plants provide some 5 percent of electricity in Germany. What's more, German wind power plants not only provide German electricity, but also sell electricity to other countries. In 2012, German wind power industries earned about 6.3 billion Euro! We can easily understand why Germany can make wind power a good by pic.2 below.

 

 

pic.2

 

 

3. Obstacle to the development of green energy in Germany

    Just as I mentioned in previous posts, money is always an obstacle to the development of green energy. That is to say, the cost of developing green energy is often enormous so that few countries are willing to invest in green energy. Although Germany's ratio of green energy is the highest in the world, German government did face challenges. Since the cost of green energy is higher than that of fossil fuel or nuclear power, if German government wants to replace traditional energy with green energy, the cost of electricity must be raised. It is estimated that the elecricity price in Germany is four time that of Taiwan. The price is so high that lots of German people oppose the development of green energy. Pic.3 shows German people launching a demonstration against green energy.

 

pic.3

 

 

 

 

 



 



reference :

pic.1 : http://inhabitat.com/abandoned-german-open-pit-mine-turned-into-worlds-largest-solar-park/

pic.2 : http://mygermantravels.com/2011/01/german-wind-power/

pic.3 : http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/germanys-green-energy-bust/

Post 8 : Fuel Cell

Fuel  Cell

1. PEMFC 

     Fuel cell is an electrochemical device that generates electricity by combining hydrogen(H2) and oxygen(O2). If you want to keep a fuel cell generating electricity, just add more H2 and O2 to it. In other words, fuel cells won't go die, as long as we supply gas to them. Let's us look at the most promising kind of fuel cell, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC). Among all fuel cells, PEMFC is more likely to be commercialized. The picture below shows a PEMFC's stucture.

pic. 1

 

2. How it works

     1. electrode : The anode conducts the electrons, so that they can go to the external circuit.

                           The cathode conducts the electrons back from the external circuit to the catalyst.

    

     2. electrolyte : In a PEMFC, the electrolyte is the proton exchange membrane. It only allows positively charged ions to go through. In this case, the proton exchange membrane let protons(H+) move from anode to cathode, and keep electrons from going into eletrolyte.

 

     3. catalyst : A catalyst is a substance whuch, without itself changing, quickens chemical reaction.

 

 

     The reaction occuring in a PEMFC is given by the picture below.First, hydrogen gas enters anode. When a H2 molecule comes to catalyst, it splits into two protons and two electrons. Then, the electrons go to the external circuit, and the protons move toward cathode. When electrons come to cathode from the external circuit, they react with protons and O2 molecules and form water and heat. 

 

pic.2

 

 3. Hydrogen cars

      According to this video, the Honda FCX clarity has been driven by people in the U.S. and Japan, and it is now testing in some European countries. There is a term called "Fuel Cell Stack" in this video that might confuse you. Since a single fuel cell can only generate electricity of 0.7 volts which can only light up some small device like a bulb. To increase the voltage of the electricity generated, we let the cell stacked in series.
      There are lots of advantage of using hydrongen cars. They are efficient, quite and they don't have any emission. What's more, their performance is good. Take the Honda FCX clarity for example, it performs very well at its top speed of 100 miles per hour!!(based on the video)

 

 

referance :

pic.1 and pic.2 : drawn by me             

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post 7 : Hydrogen Economy

Hydrogen Economy

1. Definition

       "The hydrogen economy is a proposed system of delivering energy using hydrogen. The term hydrogen economy was coined by John Bockris during a talk he gave in 1970 at General Motors (GM) Technical Center."(1#)

 

2. Using hydrogen as a kind of fuel

     A process of using hydrogen as a fuel can be divided into three parts. They are production, storage of hydrogen and generation of electricity. 

      

(1) production of hydrogen

     Actually, there are tons of ways to produce hydrogen. I will only introduce two of them. One is "steam reforming" and the other one is "electrolysis".

 

steam reforming : Use hot steam to separate hydrongen from hydrocarbon(碳氫化合物). This method is the cheapest one among all hydrogen-production so far. It is obviously that this process need a lot of energy(heat). However, if the energy used in this production come from fossil fuel, the goal of "zero-emission" won't be achieved. Thus, it is quite a challenge of this method.

 

 

pic.1

electrolysis : Eletrolyze(電解) water to obtain hydrogen and oxygen. Since water is a weak electrolye, so we often add some strong electrolye, such as acid, base and salt to provide enough ions. Notice that this process need electricity. Green energy like solar power and wind power are ideal sources of the electicity needed. However, as I mention in my previous post, we haven't found economic way to take advantage of these green energy yet. Fossil fuel is still the cheapest fuel so far.

 

 

 

(2) storage of hydrogen

 

     Since hydrogen is a dangerous gas, the storage of hydrogen is very difficult. The most common way to store hydrogen is to fill hydrogen into a iron jar with high pressure (about 100 atm). I think you guys are familiar with the gas storage tank in our campus. And there is also a method of  storing hydrogen with a kind of alloy(合金) called "hydrogen storage metal". It is said that we can use lower pressure to store hydrogen through this alloy.

 

 

 pic.2

 

 

(3) generation of electricity

 

     It will too much content, if I introduce the way of generating electricity by hydrogen in this post.(I promiss I will talk anout it in next post) So, I will talk about one of the example of using hydrogen as a fuel, hydrogen car.  A car hydrogen car(pic.3) is powered totally or partly by hydrogen fuel cell(I will talk more about it next time). Just like cars using fossil fuel, hydrogen car also need "gas" stations(pic.4) to fuel up.

 

 pic.3

 

 

 

pic.4

 

 







   

 

 reference:
1# : http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E6%B0%AB%E8%83%BD
pic.1 : drawn by myself
pic.2 : http://www.hightech.url.tw/index.php/2012-06-06-14-12-38/29-green-energy/217-hydrogen-storage
pic.3 : http://big5.chinabroadcast.cn/gate/big5/auto.cri.cn/261/2013/10/16/461s119799.htm
pic.4 : http://www.carnews.com/article.php?id=11062

Post 6: Our Mighty Sun

 Our Migthy Sun

1. sun : the center of the solar system

        "Sun is the star of our solar system, its diameter is about 1392684km (about 109 times of that of earth!!!), and its mass is about 1.989*10^30 kg(about 3.3*10^5 times of that of earth!!!)"(#1). Let me give you an idea about the size of sun. If our earth is as big as a golf ball,that you can easily hold in hands, then sun will be as big as the tuned mass dumper(阻尼器) of Taipei 101!

 

pic.1

 



 

          Although the mass and volume of sun are both enormous, its density is only 1.410 g/cm^3 which is around a quarter of that of earth. The density of sun is lower than that of earth, because sun is mainly composed of "light" element, such as Hydrogen and Helium. The picture below shows the composition of sun.

pic.2

            If we take sun as an power generator, then Hydrogen will be the fuel. The reaction that generates tons of light and heat is called "Nuclear Fusion." I will just introduce nuclear fusion shortly at here, if you are really intrested in it, you can visit this website http://atropos.as.arizona.edu/aiz/teaching/a250/pp.html.  Four proton(氫原子核) are converted into a Helium's nucleus(氦原子核) and energy. In fact,  a Helium's nucleus is a little bit lighter than four proton, that is, some mass "disappear" during the reaction. By mass-energy equivation, mass can be converted into energy. Thus the mass dose not just vanish during nuclear fusion, it is just transfered into energy.       

 

 

 

pic.3

 2. Solar power on earth

      Sun is a very kind, generous man, "the power he gives us is ten thousand times of the energy we use per year!"(#2) Remeber that I mentioned almost all green energy come from sun at my first post? Now, let me show you this amazing fact by the pcture below. It's a pity that we can't take advantage of solar power very well because we haven't developed a method to harness it efficiently. However, witnessing a lot of advanced coutries invest a lot of money in developing solar power, I am conviced that a revolution of energy will take place in the near future!

 

pic.4

 

 

 

reference:

#1:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

#2: 瑞昇文化 <用再生能源打造非核家園>

pic.1: golf ball : http://www.zazzle.com/golf_ball_sticker-217715007674811102

          101 TMD : http://chinese.engadget.com/2008/08/27/3c-101-top/

pic.2:  http://www.solarviews.com/eng/sun.htm#views   (statistic)

pic.3: http://atropos.as.arizona.edu/aiz/teaching/a250/pp.html

pic.4: 瑞昇文化 <用再生能源打造非核家園> (statistic)

          http://www.nipic.com/show/3/9/7a147a794aaf74c6.html (animals)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post 5 : Biomass Energy

Biomass Energy

1. Definition of biomass

      According to a website, biomass is "organic matter (such as wood, crops, and waste) that is used as a fuel souce."(#1) For instance, burning wood for cooking is a way to use biomass. Nowadays, there are many ways to take advantage of biomass, and these methods can be classified into three groups.  They are biofuel, biopower and bioproduct. I will give you each group an example in the third section of this article.

2. The advantage of using biomass energy

        We might be confused that why people call biomass as a kind of green energy while burning biomass (such as wood) dose cause the emission of carbon dioxide. In fact, we won't increase the amount of CO2 in the air by using biomass as a source of energy! You can get this idea from the picture below.





 

 

3. Example of applications of biomass

1. biofuel : "Right now, the most common biofuel is ethanol and most ethanol is made from corn grain or sugar cane. But ethanol also can be made from the cellulose, plant stalks, grass, poplar trees, willow trees, corn cobs, and other woody plant parts."(#2)

 

 

2. biopower : This video will explain how biopower is transfered into electricity.

 

 

3. bioproduct : "Bio logs consists of 100% coir Fiber webs cross lapped or air layed , followed by needle punching or stitch bonding. The substrate is rolled into desired dimensions. Bio logs promote plant growth and microbial activity." (#3)
 


 

 reference:

#1 http://www.clean-energy-ideas.com/energy/energy-dictionary/biomass-definition

#2 http://research.msu.edu/tags/biofuel-crops

#3 http://coir-onmattresses.com/bio-logs.html

                     

 

 

 



Post 4: Geothermal energy

Geothermal energy

1. Iceland

     Before we move onto our topic, geothermal energy, I would like to introduce a country depending a lot on this kind of energy, Iceland. We can find out that some 66 percent of energy of Iceland comes from geothermal energy! People on Iceland make good use of this underground energy. Geothermal energy is not only used to generate electricity, it is also the resource of hot springs, a gift given by God for people on Iceland. Interestingly, there is a restaurant on Iceland where food is cooked by the steam generated by the underground heat.

 

 

                                                                              pic. 1

                                                                       pic. 2

A geyser is a spring characterized by intermittent discharge of water ejected turbulently and accompanied by a vapour phase (steam).   #1

2. Geothermal power plant

     The picture below shows how geothermal power plant functions simply. Although geothermal power plants produce little amount of greenhouse gas, it dosen't mean that it is completely friendly to earth. The steam is composed of hot water vapor, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide(toxic). Separating hydrogen sulfide from the steam can be a costly procedure.You can take a look at how people on Iceland are trying to deal with this problem in the video.

 

reference:      pic. 1:  http://www.journalisme-scientifique.com/Geothermal-Energy-ICELAND.html

                      pic. 2:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geyser

                           #1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geyser

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post 3 : Wind power

Wind power

1. Windmill

     I guess that we are all familiar with windmills. You might make yourself a toy windmill in your kindergarden art class, or watched it on a very famous cartoon, "Teletubbies(天線寶寶)" . However, windmills are essential tools for whole human race now. They now transfer wind power into electricity we need! In my opinion, windmills are such beautiful tools because of their simple design . What's more, every time I think of windmills rotating elegantly in the winds, I wish that I can be one of them.

        





                            pic.1

                                                                                         pic.2

 

 



 

 

 

video 1

 

 

 

2. Wind power

     According to a data, "in 2011/9 electricity generated by wind power plants aroud the world reached 200 million kW!!!! Besides, wind power are now growing at an incredible pace. If it keeps growing, there will be 12% of electrity provided by wind power in 2020."(#1) Let's take a look at some factors making wind power grow so fast recently. 

(1) It's cheap

 

(2) It can not be used up, or say it's sustainable.

 

(3) It is accessible in many regions.

 

    We now konw that wind power plants transfer the energy of wind into electricity, but a question may flash into our mind immediately, 'How dose it work?' Let me explain it briefly for you. There are two kinds of forces that make windmills rotate, drag force(阻力) and lift force(升力). In pic.3 the drag force acting on wing A is bigger than that of wing B, so the windmills will rotate clockwise. In pic.4 there are two winds flow through the wing, the speed of A is higher than the speed of B. By Bernoulli's principle(白努力定律) the pressure below the wing is bigger than the pressure beneath the wing. Thus, a lift force is generated by this difference of pressure, and its direction is up. Finally this lift force makes the windmill rotate clockwise.

 
pic. 3



pic.4
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

reference:

pic.1 : http://jatai.pixnet.net/blog/post/32649736-%E5%A4%A9%E7%B7%9A%E5%A6%9E%E5%A6%9E

pic.2 : http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/Wind%20farm%20blades_98756

video 1 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu3EyzOYpGY

#1 : 瑞昇文化 <用再生能源打造非核家園> p70

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 


   

 

Post2: Wave power

Wave power and Tidal power

1. How waves are formed?

     There are many ways to make waves, but I would like to introduced only one of them here. One way is related to the flow of air,or we call it "wind". When wind flows beyond the surface of sea, the upper layer of sea water is moved by the wind, and then the waves spread along the direction at which the wind flows.(picture 1) If these words is too abstract to understand, let me show you a image. Consider a cup of tea on your desk, when you blow your tea to cool it down, you will notice there are some little wimples in the cup. This situation is similar to the form of waves I just mentioned.

    Actually, most of the waves paticipating in wave power generation is constructed through the way I mentioned in the first paragraph.

 (If you want to know how waves actually are formed, then you can take a look at http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01428/waves1en.html)

 

                                                 picture 1

 

2. Wave power plants

     Wave power plants transform the kinectic or the work done by the gravitational force into other forms of energy. Next, the energy will make the generator run and then generates electricity. The pictures below are example of wave power plants. Although they might be different to each other, they all function by a commom princinple.  

 

                                        waves             generator       electricity

 picture 2

 

 

 

 We can find out that this kind of worm-like

 wave power generator is quite big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                        picture 3

 

 

picture 4

 Isn't it a cool design which uses waves to set pumps into action?

                                    This video introduces another kind of wave energy plant.

 3. Where does waves power come from?

      The answer to this question is sun. When the atmosphere is heated up by sun, some part of air is hotter than other part of air. Since hot air has a lower density than cool air, air starts to flow. The flow of air is wind, and wind causes waves. Thus, the source of wave power is our mighty sun!!!




Reference: pic.1    http://www.ne.t.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ja/research/introduction/laboratory/n_energy
                  pic.2    http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/sustainable-earth/11-of-the-fastest-growing-green-jobs
                  pic.3    http://www.windprospect.com/technologies?t=wave_pelamis
                  pic.4    http://www.lamtengchoy.com/main/?item-ppr-wave-energy/show/75/
                  video   Functionality of wave power station developed by Voith Hydro (www.voith.com). Animation produced by Kral GmbH (www.kralgmbh.at).



post1: What is green power?

1.  What is green power?

 

1.      three indispensable features of power

a.      can be provided constantly

b.     be harmless to the environment

 

c.      cheap

     green power is a kind of power which features environmentally-friendly

 

2.      Green powers are natural energetic processes that can be harnessed with little pollution. Besides, most of these energetic processes come from sun.

                     (picture 1)

 

you will know how sun provides these natural energetic processes with energy in following topics!!

 

 

 

3.      economic benefits: the major problem of green power

 

 In the table below, we can easily find out that green energy is much more expensive compared to Fossil-fuel power station. Even though everybody know green energy is harmless to the enviornment, when it comes to the costs of green energy, few people are willing to invest their money in it.

 

                  (picture 2)

 

2. Why green energy is so important ?

 

      Nowadays, we can hear lots of people talking about green energy and some developed countries are trying to develop green energy. It seems that green energy is getting more and more essential. I think there are two reasons that can explain this phenomenon.

                   

 

     One reason is related to the environment, and the other one comes from power. First of all, since Industrial Evolution, the emission of carbon dioxide has accummulated to an incredible amount. Some climate scientists pointed out we human being might be responsible for the climate changes associated with gloabal warming. One of the most horrible things caused by global warming is the rise of sea level. Around 23% of the worlds’ population lives in the near coastal zone with population densities about three times higher than the global average. The most recent IPCC assessment based on the most gloomy scenario puts predictions of 21st century sea level rise at between 26 and 59cm (10-23 inches). (#1)  Obviously, if we keep using fossil fuel instead of green energy, our lives will be threatened. Here is a vedio about the simulation of some place in the U.S. when sea level rises.

 video 1

 

 

The other reason is related to energy. Actually, all forms of energy on earth come from sun. In other words, as long as sun keeps burning, we won't run out of energy. Unfortunately, the main fuel we use, fossil fuel, need thousands of years(or even longer) to store energy of sun. Shortly after, we will  exhaust all fossil fuel, and it will absolutely be a crisis. Thus, finding ways to take advantages of renewable energy or green energy is a big task for us. Let this video remind us that we must develop green energy as fast as we can.

     video 2

 

 

 

Reference

 

picture 2 :  用再生能源打造非核家園    瑞昇文化  p13

#1 : http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/impacts/sea_level_rise/

video 1 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N13oAcUITAM
video 2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI4-t7ujgyg