One of the topics that we briefly covered in class this quarter that I found really interesting was the lecture discussing oil spills. While all of the topics covered in class were realavant to what is going on in the world today, it doesn't seem that anything is more prevalent in the news right now that the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I was really surprised by all of the different methods that were available to help remove the oil from the water. I had no idea that there were ways of actually adding chemicals to the water that would force oil to dissolve and mix in with the ocean water.
After doing a bit of research on the web I learned that a ban for drilling for oil in the shallow waters of the coast has been lifted in order to hopefully redirect the flow of oil away from the broken oil rig. This will hopefully greatly reduce the amount of oil spewing from the rig and into the Gulf. The problem with this solution is that drilling new wells takes time, meaning this is not going to be an immediate solution. Hopefully a better solution will be found soon, but until that happens I guess we will have to hope this will make a difference once put in place.
Source: http://www.startribune.com/business/95432114.html
Monday, June 7, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Nuclear Energy
Before reading this article I was pretty much in the middle as far as the debate over whether to use nuclear energy or not goes. Knowing very little on the subject, to me it seemed like an efficient way to create energy, but also a very risky approach that may not be worth the potential cost. After reading the article, I'm still slightly unsure of which side I'm on, but I am standing a bit closer to those who are against nuclear technology.
One thing that really surprised me was how inefficient nuclear power plants were compared to using wind and solar energy. To me it seems like a no brainer that we should be focusing our research and money on advancing our solar and wind technologies, because not only are they infinitely cleaner, but they are also powered by renewable resources. With nuclear power, just like natural gas and coal, there is only so much uranium on the planet and even less that is actually at a high enough quality to be useful. Solar and wind energies, however, are infinite, unless for some reason the sun stopped burning, in which case I think we would have bigger issues to worry about.
Another point that I found interesting was the fact that not only are wind and solar energies much cleaner that nuclear, but are actually more efficient. According to the article, there will be an estimated "increase of 510 megawatts a year from now until 2021" while the number for wind power is nearly double and likely to continue to rise. It seems strange to me that we would continue to invest millions of dollars into nuclear energy that is dangerous and inefficient compared to other alternatives. One would think that we would instead put that money toward more efficient and cleaner solutions that still have room for improvement, like solar and wind energies.
One thing that really surprised me was how inefficient nuclear power plants were compared to using wind and solar energy. To me it seems like a no brainer that we should be focusing our research and money on advancing our solar and wind technologies, because not only are they infinitely cleaner, but they are also powered by renewable resources. With nuclear power, just like natural gas and coal, there is only so much uranium on the planet and even less that is actually at a high enough quality to be useful. Solar and wind energies, however, are infinite, unless for some reason the sun stopped burning, in which case I think we would have bigger issues to worry about.
Another point that I found interesting was the fact that not only are wind and solar energies much cleaner that nuclear, but are actually more efficient. According to the article, there will be an estimated "increase of 510 megawatts a year from now until 2021" while the number for wind power is nearly double and likely to continue to rise. It seems strange to me that we would continue to invest millions of dollars into nuclear energy that is dangerous and inefficient compared to other alternatives. One would think that we would instead put that money toward more efficient and cleaner solutions that still have room for improvement, like solar and wind energies.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Bottled Water
The first site a clicked on after typing "bottled water" into the search bar on Google was the site for Aqua Falls Bottled Water. This site provides information for the company that distributes Aqua Falls, Glacier Mountain, Mountain Valley Spring, and Diamond Spring bottled water. After briefly looking over the company's website and services, two things really jumped out at me that I had not realized before:
1. Glacier Mountain bottled water actually comes from a spring in Pine Grove, Ohio. This surprised me because with a name like Glacier Mountain one would assume the water came from the snow and ice covered peaks of the mountains and last time I checked there weren't many snow covered mountains anywhere in Ohio.
2. Another thing I noticed when looking over the company's website was the process the company uses to go about filtering the water. Using reverse osmosis and a 13-step filtration process. Looking over this process my mind quickly wandered to the slide we reviewed in class showing the steps our tap water takes to reach our water towers. To me the two don't seem all that different.
Source:
http://www.aquafallswater.com/index.php
The second site I found was an article on National Geographic's webside titled "Bottled Water Isn't Healthier Than Tap, Reports Reveals." In this article I found several interesting points that I hadn't been aware of:
1. One fact that jumped out at me was that, while I already knew that bottled water cost nearly 10,000 times more than tap water and that much of the cost was due to packaging, a big portion of the cost of bottled water is also due to transportation and shipping costs. According to the article nearly a quarter of all bottled water is shipped across national borders, and the french brand Evion exports between 50 and 60% of its product.
2. I was also surprised to learn that in some cases bottled water can actually be more unhealthy than tap water. According to Nick Reeves, the executive director of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management in Great Britain, "the high mineral content of some bottled waters makes them unsuitable for feeding babies and young children."
Source:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0224_060224_bottled_water.html
1. Glacier Mountain bottled water actually comes from a spring in Pine Grove, Ohio. This surprised me because with a name like Glacier Mountain one would assume the water came from the snow and ice covered peaks of the mountains and last time I checked there weren't many snow covered mountains anywhere in Ohio.
2. Another thing I noticed when looking over the company's website was the process the company uses to go about filtering the water. Using reverse osmosis and a 13-step filtration process. Looking over this process my mind quickly wandered to the slide we reviewed in class showing the steps our tap water takes to reach our water towers. To me the two don't seem all that different.
Source:
http://www.aquafallswater.com/index.php
The second site I found was an article on National Geographic's webside titled "Bottled Water Isn't Healthier Than Tap, Reports Reveals." In this article I found several interesting points that I hadn't been aware of:
1. One fact that jumped out at me was that, while I already knew that bottled water cost nearly 10,000 times more than tap water and that much of the cost was due to packaging, a big portion of the cost of bottled water is also due to transportation and shipping costs. According to the article nearly a quarter of all bottled water is shipped across national borders, and the french brand Evion exports between 50 and 60% of its product.
2. I was also surprised to learn that in some cases bottled water can actually be more unhealthy than tap water. According to Nick Reeves, the executive director of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management in Great Britain, "the high mineral content of some bottled waters makes them unsuitable for feeding babies and young children."
Source:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0224_060224_bottled_water.html
Monday, May 17, 2010
Hydrogen and Ethanol Based Energy
1. Using hydrogen for energy
There are two major reasons at the moment why we don't simply make the switch from gasoline fueled cars to hydrogen. Cost and efficiency. Currently hydrogen fuel cell cars cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more to produce than your average gasoline fueled can, and still have only half of the range of cars currently on the road. For the time being the most effective way for us to extract hydrogen, and the method that is used most often, is extracting hydrogen from natural gas. The issue with using natural gas for our hyrogen supply is that natural gas, just like coal and oil, is a non-renewable resource which we will at some point run out of. It seems logical that we would simply extract hydrogen from water considering it is not only renewable but also covers 70% of our planet but this has its own issues as well, because extracting hydrogen from water is an extremely ineffecient way to gain energy. With improved technologies I do feel that hydrogen is a viable source of energy, as scientists and manufactures focus on other ways to use hydrogen energy, including channeling the energy into electricity to power automobile batteries, or into creating fuel cells as apposed to combustion engines.
Source:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/01-point.html
2. Ethanol Based Fuels
On the surface using ethanol as a substitute for gasoline seems like a perfect solution for our reliance on foriegn oil and polution. Not only is ethanol cheaper, but it can be extracted from home grown crops and is much less toxic to our environment than gasoline. However, switching from gasoline to ethanol based fuels will not come without consequenses, which will be felt all around the world. As demand for corn for both energy and domestic uses continues to rise, prices follow the same trend. While some countries stand to gain quite a bit from increased production of corn based ethanol fuels, others will suffer. Countries who export corn will undoubtedly gain from increasing prices on corn based products, while countries who cannot produce their own corn crops and are forced to import will face much higher prices than they have in the past. The rise in demand for corn will also impact the prices of domestic goods that rely on our corn crops. Products and foods that are corn based will continue to see higher prices, along with competing crops such as wheat and soybeans as they fight to stay viable.
Source:
http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/winter_08/article4.aspx
There are two major reasons at the moment why we don't simply make the switch from gasoline fueled cars to hydrogen. Cost and efficiency. Currently hydrogen fuel cell cars cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more to produce than your average gasoline fueled can, and still have only half of the range of cars currently on the road. For the time being the most effective way for us to extract hydrogen, and the method that is used most often, is extracting hydrogen from natural gas. The issue with using natural gas for our hyrogen supply is that natural gas, just like coal and oil, is a non-renewable resource which we will at some point run out of. It seems logical that we would simply extract hydrogen from water considering it is not only renewable but also covers 70% of our planet but this has its own issues as well, because extracting hydrogen from water is an extremely ineffecient way to gain energy. With improved technologies I do feel that hydrogen is a viable source of energy, as scientists and manufactures focus on other ways to use hydrogen energy, including channeling the energy into electricity to power automobile batteries, or into creating fuel cells as apposed to combustion engines.
Source:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/01-point.html
2. Ethanol Based Fuels
On the surface using ethanol as a substitute for gasoline seems like a perfect solution for our reliance on foriegn oil and polution. Not only is ethanol cheaper, but it can be extracted from home grown crops and is much less toxic to our environment than gasoline. However, switching from gasoline to ethanol based fuels will not come without consequenses, which will be felt all around the world. As demand for corn for both energy and domestic uses continues to rise, prices follow the same trend. While some countries stand to gain quite a bit from increased production of corn based ethanol fuels, others will suffer. Countries who export corn will undoubtedly gain from increasing prices on corn based products, while countries who cannot produce their own corn crops and are forced to import will face much higher prices than they have in the past. The rise in demand for corn will also impact the prices of domestic goods that rely on our corn crops. Products and foods that are corn based will continue to see higher prices, along with competing crops such as wheat and soybeans as they fight to stay viable.
Source:
http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/winter_08/article4.aspx
Monday, April 19, 2010
Ozone and CFCs Debate
Honestly I have no clue where I stand on the issue of CFCs and their effects on the ozone layer. It seems every other article I read is telling me the exact opposite of what I saw in the one before that. While I agree that anything we can do to stop the further destruction of the ozone layer is going to help us in the long run, I do feel that the governments around the world were a little hasty in jumping on the "ban CFCs" bandwagon. If engineers and manufacturing companies can come up with alternatives to CFCs in the production of refridgerators and alternatives for aerosol cans, I say go for it. Why put more CFCs into our atmosphere than necessary?
However I do think that the government went a little overboard, scaring the public by claiming that these CFCs were causing the rapid depletion of the ozone layer, and that this would put people at a serious risk for cancer, when in reality they had very little research supporting their claims. As the first article stated, the oceans release almost ten times more chlorine into the atmosphere in a year than we could, and a single volcano eruption produced more than we could in a lifetime. The fact that the oceans and volcanoes have been around longer than most of us can even comprehend and the world hasn't melted away yet, should be more than enough proof that the small amounts of CFCs that we do produce will not bring about the end of the world. If the government feels that it's necessary to make a claim such as the one they made, they should have at least had a little evidence to back it up before trying to scare people into believing something that wasn't necessarily true.
However I do think that the government went a little overboard, scaring the public by claiming that these CFCs were causing the rapid depletion of the ozone layer, and that this would put people at a serious risk for cancer, when in reality they had very little research supporting their claims. As the first article stated, the oceans release almost ten times more chlorine into the atmosphere in a year than we could, and a single volcano eruption produced more than we could in a lifetime. The fact that the oceans and volcanoes have been around longer than most of us can even comprehend and the world hasn't melted away yet, should be more than enough proof that the small amounts of CFCs that we do produce will not bring about the end of the world. If the government feels that it's necessary to make a claim such as the one they made, they should have at least had a little evidence to back it up before trying to scare people into believing something that wasn't necessarily true.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Assignment #1
1.Class expectations
Honestly, coming into this class I wasn't expecting to learn alot. Most of my other GE science courses have pretty much been a recap of what I already learned in high school, but after the first day I'm happy to see that we'll be covering some topics that my high school chemistry never touched on.
2.First impression
My first impression of this class was actually really positive compared to most of my other classes. I'm kind of glad that this course is new to our teacher too, so I don't feel so stressed and I'm looking forward to the demo's that he mentioned to hopefully keep things lively.
3.Hope to Learn?
I'm excited to expand on the little bit I know about environmental chemistry, because what I know is pretty limited. I also look forward to what will hopefully be some pretty interesting labs.
Honestly, coming into this class I wasn't expecting to learn alot. Most of my other GE science courses have pretty much been a recap of what I already learned in high school, but after the first day I'm happy to see that we'll be covering some topics that my high school chemistry never touched on.
2.First impression
My first impression of this class was actually really positive compared to most of my other classes. I'm kind of glad that this course is new to our teacher too, so I don't feel so stressed and I'm looking forward to the demo's that he mentioned to hopefully keep things lively.
3.Hope to Learn?
I'm excited to expand on the little bit I know about environmental chemistry, because what I know is pretty limited. I also look forward to what will hopefully be some pretty interesting labs.
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