Last post: Electricity

During the whole history, humans have strugled for searching new ways of producing energy in the form of heat, light and more recently in the form of electricity.

Electricity or electrical energy is generated mostly in power plants. These obtain energy from different types of sources:

-Renewable energy: this type of energy is
also called green energy. It's obtained from natural resources that cannot finish such as  the sun, moving water, wind, biomass, geothermal heat, waves... This energy almost doesn't pollute the environment as they don't produce damaging gases as CO2, CH4, S...

Types of renewable energy are solar energy, eolic energy, tidal energy, hydraulic energy, geothermal energy...

-Non-renewable energy: this energy is obtained from limited resources such as coal, oil, natural gas and uranium. Types of non-renewable energy are thermal energy and nuclear energy. All these resources are highly pollutant or very dangerous. The burning of coal, oil and natural gas is on of the main causes of the greenhouse effect and the pollution of the atmosphere and the rivers. Nuclear energy is a very dangerous energy as its radiaoctive waste is very difficult to destroy. Furthermore, there's the possible danger of a nuclear accident.

However, nowadays energy production has improved a lot leading to amazing innovations helping sustainability and the maximum of production with less pollution.

Tesla's Powerwall is an incredible innovation created by Tesla Motors. It provides energy at home during day and night. This model has been created to provide backup power during outages and natural disasters. The Powerwall is able to charge an electric car at home and enables you to self-power by connecting to Tesla solar panels.



Tesla's Solar Roof is able to power your home with adequate solar tiles for each home. The solar roof produces enough energy to supply the electricity grid for day and night thanks to its glass solar tiles. They are much more durable and resistant than normal tiles and are almost warrantied for a lifetime of a house.





Pollution is one of the main problems these fresh and new inventions want to solve but we can do much more than that. Saving energy at home is a priority to reduce environmental pollution. Although it might be an obvious thing we still don't do it.
Every home should try to illuminate it mainly with solar light by installing huge windows that allow light to come in. Bulbs should only be lit a few hours when it's dark. Furthermore, insulating properly a house makes it fresher or warmer depending on the weather. This would avoid paying very high amounts of electricity in the bill. Also, heating water is cheaper if you use renewable energies than with current electricity. For example, using biomass or sun energy, water can be heated with no money.

During this term, our group has started building a solar dehydrator. This solar device is in charge of dehydrating fruits or vegetables, thanks to air currents. When air enters the device, it starts heating as it goes up. Solar rays enter the dehydrator through the glass and help warming up the air. Finally hot air exits when it arrives at the top of the device. This flow of air makes possible the food to dehydrate. This simple machine makes possible to cook food with no electricity, using renewable energies.


This year in technology we've done a lot of interesting things. Although we have to work more as we have no exams, most of the projects are more entertaining and have a utility. I have especially enjoyed working in the workshop and programming. The university scratch challenges, were fun too. My favourite software programs have been Scratch and Google Sites. These programs allow us to do very different and diverse things. I've been able to create funny scratch animations and also complete web pages. For next year I would like to have more time to finish most of the tasks in class. However, I've enjoyed very much this subject.


SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

https://www.tesla.com/energy 
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy/ 

IMAGES:

http://edge.alluremedia.com.au/m/g/2015/05/tesla_powerwall_official.jpg 
https://g.foolcdn.com/editorial/images/419630/tesla-solar-roof-tiles_large.png
http://www.motherearthnews.com/~/media/Images/MEN/Editorial/Special%20Projects/Issues/2014/06-01/Best%20Ever%20Solar%20Food%20Dehydrator%20Plans/Lead-Chart%20jpg.jpg?la=en 
https://geogalong.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/1681901-poster-1280-pollution.jpg 
http://www.keia.org/sites/default/files/events/thumbnails/european_nuclear_power_plant_a.jpg
http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/02/Norway-Wind-Energy-Farm.jpg
http://solar-energy-systems.regionaldirectory.us/solar-energy-panels-720.jpg
https://image.slidesharecdn.com/tidalenergy-150410115625-conversion-gate01/95/tidal-energy-11-638.jpg?cb=1428667196
http://www.khaama.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Iran-boost-electricity-export-to-Afghanistan.jpeg 

TRY ENGINEERING

A few weeks ago, my high school had the amazing opportunity to participate in a workshop of "Try Engineering" from real life engineers of the UIB (Universitat de les Illes Balears). Their aim was to give us basic knowledge of engineering. 

http://theselfsufficientliving.com/wp-content/
uploads/2014/02/homemade-wind-turbine1.jpg

They first taught us what an engineer is, the work they do and what types of engineers exist: civil engineers, software engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers... Then, with only 50 minutes, we had to build a wind turbine that should lift a bag of tea. We had to adapt to our own materials: cardboard, strings, celo tape and other simple materials. Almost all the groups achieved in doing this activity and we not only learned but also had fun creating it.

Now we know that an engineer is someone who designs and builds things to find solution to specific problems. All engineers must find the simplest solution that can solve the problem, using the materials they have in a certain period of time.

Our group, composed by Tomeu, Nikola, Adam, August, Sebastià and I, worked quite well. We gave each other a role to do so everyone could be part of the project. All the members worked and contributed to it so we could finish the wind turbine on time. 

However, we could improve some aspects of it. At first we didn't know that the wings had to move with wind coming directly to the front so we had to changed them.

Our arrangement didn't work perfectly well but it still lifted the tea bag. So next time we must fix better the wings.

The workshop wanted us to feel or know how an engineer work or how is to be an engineer so I think that we worked as engineers. We built a wind turbine to solve the problem we had (lifting a tea bag) using only the materials we needed and had. Maybe we could have found a simpler solution but we did our best and with 50 minutes we could only solve the problem in that way.

I think most of my classmates and I have felt like engineers because we had to find a solution to a problem with certain material and time. So we had the same pressure and conditions that an engineer has when designing and building something.

I enjoyed this activity and as I said it was a great oportunity for us to be able to do it. It was really interesting and amusing.

THE OCEAN CLEANUP

Plastics are a huge problem nowadays. As Boyan Slat says, we are in the Plastic Era and these are find everywhere: in our food, our houses, our schools, etc. In this actual society it would be impossible to live without them.

In almost all earth coastlines, dead animals such as turtles, fish, birds and also some big whales are found, trapped by plastic, it is not a biodegradable material so it lasts for a long period of time, causing a great environmental impact.
Not only big plastics are dangerous for the whole environment but also the small particles, specially the phthalates. As I've said in the previous post, "Learning about phthalates", these small particles are very harmful for not only the environment but for us. They escape easily into the environment and are found in products in which we have a high exposure.

fabrique3d.com/en/ocean-cleanup-2open_in_new

Boyan Slat is a 23 year old Dutch inventor with an awesome idea to clean up the oceans from plastics. He started the project in 2013 and since that year he and his engineering team have been working in the Ocean Cleanup project.
With this brilliant idea, a lot of work and energy are saved. Plastic waste moves with ocean currents so no energy is needed. Then plastics are collected naturally in big arrays that act like artificial coastlines, trapping all the plastic particles, but allowing the animals to go underneath this barrier. Then big towers store and pack the plastic and wait till its collected.
Using this method it is estimated to collect the whole waste in the Northern Pacific Ocean patch in only 10 years.

link

In my opinion, this new solution to fight with the plastic garbage is incredible. Not only because of its effectiveness, but because of its simplicity. This action also empowers the young population. Boyan Slat has been able with only 20 years to create a solution to this actual problem, so it means that in the recent future, young population will have much more importance and impact in our societies than before. Being able to solve similar problems and to create new inventions. 
As I said before, I think this idea is completely helpful to clean up the oceans from plastic waste. But cleaning the ocean is not useful if the world population is not concerned with the damage it can be done by throwing a simple plastic bag. It would better to educate the population, specially the children, and to raise awereness with not throwing and recycling plastic products.

-Sources of information:
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ocean_Cleanup