Use Your Words

Retracing Your Journey

• What quest did you like the most? The quest I liked the most was See the World, because it let me do whatever I wanted. It allowed me to explore Earth in a way that made complete sense to me.
• What quest challenged you the most? Jurassic Park, because it was very hard to find something that had died in every mass extinction.
• What new idea had the greatest impact on you? That six little tiny degrees could ruin the world.
• What have been the results of your sustainability challenge? I did really well until I moved into a bigger bedroom, and it became much harder to plug everything into power strips and to remember to turn it off.
• What can you do as a result of this class?  In other words, build a course mini-resume that focuses on skills (e.g. chart a river on Google Maps).  You may need to look back at your previous quest journal entries to remember. As a result of this class, I can now identify different biomes, I better understand how earthquakes work, I know the different types of volcanoes and how they form, I can identify where I am on the planet without GPS, and I have realized how small the Earth is relative to the vastness of the universe.

Energy of the Future

This screenshot is from a game called Energy City (link below). This game allows you to control the energy sources for a digital city.

While playing this game, I learned the individual impacts of certain energy technologies, and the best combination of these that would keep the world from falling apart. We face many challenges today, such as climate change, and harmful pollution, but this game showed me how we could realistically overcome these issues.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/11UX9RFGqT2q51eIzGCm0q_WVz43-tWeQMkiU_Ig-SZg/edit?usp=sharing
http://content3.jason.org/resource_content/content/digitallab/8250/misc_content/public/popup.html

The Energy Crisis

The energy crisis is the concern that our current use of energy resources will someday run dry. This stems largely from our over consumption of energy providing resources. We only have a limited amount of certain resources, such as coal and oil, and we use quite a lot of those two. Natural gas is limited too, and we use quite a bit of that as well. Although energy consumption in developed areas, such as the U.S. and Europe, is falling, energy consumption in developing areas is steadily rising, causing the annual global energy consumption to rise as well.

In this study by BP, they found that, although renewables are undoubtedly growing, the use of oil is fairly steady over the years, and is our main source of energy. Europe is the biggest user of renewables, and South and Central America uses the most hydro electricity, whereas North America uses mostly oil and natural gas.

The global energy consumption is rising because of multiple factors, including but not limited to rising population, increased use of technology in developing countries, and new technology that uses more energy. Drops in prices have also caused an increased use of energy, especially in the form of gasoline for cars. This happens because price drops allow people to afford more and more gasoline, and energy for their homes, etc.

As I mentioned above, two major driving forces in the energy crisis are overpopulation, and overconsumption. Another big factor, is the hiding of information. Politics is huge in this one. People try to tell you certain things, and “prove” them by backing them with science, and then the other side tells you that their science is faulty, and it goes on and on. Regardless of this though, the public is grossly under educated about many environmental issues, this being one of them. All they may hear of it may come from public radio, politics, and news reports. Many of these people have never seem hard scientific proof that this crisis is occurring, and are therefore far less concerned about it than they should be.

Another problem is people who only care about their time on Earth, and are unconcerned about future generations. They will use all the energy they want, and do not care who else it will affect, as long as it doesn’t affect them. This, although probably not as big as the previous two issues, can also affect energy consumption.

Enough about the issues, what is especially important is how we can fix the problem we have created. One way to fix this, is to turn to renewable sources,, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric power. This would provide us with endless amounts of energy, and though it may cost more, it affects the Earth far less than other methods of obtaining this energy. We could also use electric or hybrid cars, which would at least reduce gasoline consumption. We could also put a greater focus on creating more energy efficient appliances, which would at least slow down the energy crisis.

In conclusion, while there is plenty of resources left in the Earth, we are slowly but surely draining these resources away, far faster than they could be replaced. And I wrote this whole paper, without once mentioning climate change, which is a whole different issue, but that this definitely has something to do with. I hope that someday we will be able to reduce our energy consumptio, and I hope that day will be soon.

http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-and-solutions-to-the-global-energy-crisis.php

http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=44&pid=44&aid=2

http://www.global-economic-symposium.org/knowledgebase/the-global-environment/the-energy-crisis-and-climate-change/proposals/the-energy-crisis-and-climate-change

http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/primary-energy.html

Natures Bounty

Some natural resources can be replaced over time, and some can't. I chose to research rock, or stone. Stone is a nonrenewable resource, that we use in construction, and decoration. It has many other small roles, but those are the main two. It is harvested from mines referred to as quarrys, and is cut into blocks and the processed. We are using it pretty sustainably, and there is no immediate risk of running out, but it does destroy habitats, which contain many other natural resources.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17BwoSytjk4Flwd-3rNcziAYLuHFDQTHjsiqjtVukimg

What goes down when the lights go on?

• How much money does it cost to charge your phone each day?  (According to this article, the average cost is $0.10 per kWh) Around $0.80 to get it from 0% to 100%, so about $1.60 a day.
• How much does it cost to power your home each day? $3.62
• Does it cost more to power your home during the weekends or on a weekday?  Why? Weekends because we are often not at home on the weekdays because of school and work so we use less power. 
• During which month is your power bill usually the highest?  Why?  (Ask your parents if you aren't sure!) August because the air conditioning uses a lot of power.
• If 60% of all energy that is produced is wasted before it reaches your home, how much energy (in kWh) is required to power your home for one day? Around 70kWh.
• How could you reduce the amount of energy you use without severely impacting your lifestyle? Unplugging things while we aren't at home.

Archivist: Cleaner energy sources for cars?

There are many new technologies emerging today, one of them being cleaner energy sources for cars. While there are a lot of new energy sources, the two I am going to focus on are hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles, perhaps the more impressive of the two, and electric vehicles, which are more widely known.


Hydrogen fuel cells are a relatively new technology, and even newer is the ability to use them to power cars. They use hydrogen and oxygen to power the car, and as a by product, produce only water. Although this seems great, the methods used to obtain the hydrogen needed are not as clean. There are more ways to obtain the hydrogen, other than methane, which is what we use today, but they are much more costly. Getting hydrogen from methane is about 80% efficient, as well as producing carbon monoxide (CO) as a byproduct. Getting the oxygen is much easier, as our atmosphere has naturally occurring oxygen.

Fuel cells are also extremely expensive to manufacture. The cost around $47/kW, assuming they are being mass produced, which equates to about $3,760 per car.

Many people also have nowhere to get the hydrogen from, or refuel. There are around 23 publicly accessible hydrogen refueling stations, the majority of which are in California. It would cost around 20 million dollars by some estimates, to get enough refueling stations in the U.S. for it to be practical to own a hydrogen fuel cell powered car.

Hydrogen technology has also had the support of multiple presidents, and other countries are pushing it as well.

On the other hand, electric cars are already widely used. The first practical electric car was produced in the 1880’s, and have been mass produced off and on ever since. They use a battery, which can be recharged, to power the car. There are currently over 30 all electric passenger cars that are legal to drive on the highway.

The main problem with electric cars is their relatively short range, and high cost. The lithium ion batteries used in the car's can get quite pricey, and their range is not the greatest. But as more and more people are buying the cars, and newer technology is being introduced, the cost will keep on coming down.

One possible solution to the above problem is hybrid electric cars. Although they are not zero emission cars, they are still better than gasoline powered cars. They also tend to have a longer range, and their prices are comparable to that of traditional gasoline cars.

Maintenance of electric vehicles is not too bad, but if the battery is defective, then it has to be replaced, which can be costly. It also costs much less to charge an electric car (per year) than to refuel a traditional gasoline car (per year). One study did find, though, that the lower cost of refueling did not offset the car's higher purchase price.

Another big problem with electric cars, is that dealers are reluctant to sell them. They do not have as high of margins as traditional cars, and they take longer to sell, reducing the commissions that salespeople make. They also require less maintenance, and many dealerships rely on their service departments for profit.

Overall, even though both of these types of vehicles have their shortcomings, they are both considered to be zero emission vehicles. They could help us significantly reduce air pollution, and carbon dioxide emissions. But in the end, it is up to the buyer to decide if it is worth the price.

Hydrogen Vehicle." - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle#Automobiles>.

"Alternative Fueling Station Counts by State." Alternative Fuels Data Center:. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/stations_counts.html>.

"SignOnSanDiego.com News Science -- Is 'hydrogen Highway' the Answer?" SignOnSanDiego.com News Science -- Is 'hydrogen Highway' the Answer? N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <http://legacy.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/20041122-9999-1n22hydrogen.html>.

"Hydrogen Production." - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production>.

"Electric Car." - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car>.

Book Club: The Maze Runner Series

A lot of people really like this series, myself being one of them. But there is a lot of interesting new technology to be found in this book. The first thing I find really interesting, is that The Creators, te people who built the maze, have extremely advanced technology, yet they make the gladers, the people in the maze, fend for themselves, and mostly live off the land. The second thing I find interesting are the Grievers. They seem to be made of random machine parts, yet they are extremely coordinated, and accurate. There is also a disease ravaging the world. It has caused tons of people to die, or go crazy. The world is also a pretty barren place in this series, extremely hot, and there are deserts everywhere. This could be a result of global warming. There are also random solar flares, which have definitely contributed the the Earth's scorched surfac in this book.