Iceland: Environmental effects

http://webecoist.com/2011/05/24/grimsvotn-icelands-most-active-volcano-wakes-with-a-roar/
This article is about Iceland's volcanoes and goes to describe a little about the environment effected by these volcanoes and its air pollution. In 2010, one of the volcanoes in iceland, known as Eyjafjallajökull, erupted a large cloud of ash over Europe as some of you may remember. This ash cloud was so large and potentially hazardous to the airways, that United Airlines and other airplane companies were forced to shut down their European travel lines for a few days, and lost thousand of millions of dollars in the process, even though it was for a short period of time. In the process, it severely polluted the air, and for days (maybe even months) smog from the volcano hovered over the region. This year, another one of Iceland's most active volcanoes, known as Grimsvotn, is up to the same tricks as the previous volcano, but to a lesser effect. A majority of air traffic is not anticipating to be stopped in any way from these slight eruptions of smoke/ash. Only some airlines canceled flights, to areas of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Scandinavia; where the ash/smoke is estimated (and has) drifted towards. It's estimated that up to a quarter million of Iceland's population, has died as a result from their volcanoes (roughly about 500), either from noxious clouds of gas or acidic vapor, or even lava when they have fully erupted (on rare occasion.) The weather is always effected to a degree from surrounding volcanoes, but after the ash cloud eruption from Eyjafjallajökul, weather patterns around the globe were adversely effected. There were crop failures, water shortages, and famine in places as far away as Japan. Ash not only scatters in the air, but also collects on the ground, making it difficult to drive and navigate through and coating homes and people alive. Reminds me almost of Pompei! The only nice thing about the Ash scattering is, rather than falling all over Iceland and other areas for long periods of time like with the previous volcano, the ash from this one is falling relatively quickly, and closer to the point of origin. Overall, this ash cloud that has formed is expected not to be nearly as colossal (in terms of size AND impact) as last year's, which is much safer for our environment, ourselves, and a surely a heck of a lot better for the airlines that depend on money from flights every single day. SO, my questions for you are...
1. What do you think caused the volcano to erupt? What are usual signs of triggers that something is going to happen?
2. How do you suppose residents clean up and deal with the ash? List some methods and ideas.
3. If this volcano is supposedly more active than the previous one, why does it not produce an ash cloud as large or dangerous do you suppose? Use scientific ideas/examples to back up your response.

Future Perfect - Innovative ideas for renewable energy generation on highways

DATTATREYA MANDAL Feb 7 2011

         

http://www.ecofriend.com/entry/future-perfect-innovative-ideas-for-renewable-energy-generation-on-highways/

This “article” was less of a conventional article and more of a list of new innovative ideas on how to get renewable energy sources to be more common. It also explains how they would go about doing this and such. There are 7 things in the list but I will only share the ones I thought could really work or are very interesting. The first one that I thought was very different was a solar road. It makes it so that the entire road is completely mad out of solar cells and as well as making solar energy it can sense damage and other things that happen on the road. The next one I liked was the turbines on the side of the highway. Instead of the green pole like objects atop a concrete wall to separate the two sides of the high way there could be wind powered turbines that would be affected by the passing cars.  I also thought that the solar arch was not a bad idea. It is an arch going over a road that has solar panels on top of it. It is not a bad idea but it will probably be very costly overall these ideas were pretty good.

The picture is of what a solar roadway might look like.

I think that these are generally good ideas that are worthwhile looking into but some of them seem as if they could be very expensive. There is also the possibility that in a car crash these devices could be ruins or at least damaged. This would put drivers at more of a financial risk if they do get into a car crash. If these do happen, they could be creating a ton of energy for the communities around them, so overall I think that they should be looked into but they defiantly need further research before actually investing.

1.       Which do you think is the best idea? Why? How could it be improved?

2.       Which do you think is the worst idea? Why? How could it be improved?

3.       What would be some pros and cons of these ideas? Do you think that they are worthwhile?

SB X 1-2 and California’s New Energy Future

http://www.altenergymag.com/emagazine/2011/04/sb-x-1-2-and-california%E2%80%99s-new-energy-future-/1716

The story starts off saying that Jerry Brown (above) had just signed a new energy bill for california. The law states that all California energy producers must have 33% of their energy from renewable sources. This really makes California become one of the best states for renewable energy. California has always been an efficient state when it comes to energy and this law would put them near the top for renewable energy. What California is also trying to do is put the U.S. at the top for supporting renewable energy because right now China is at the top. Now this law will not be able to go in immediate effect so they have set interims for the energy producers. By 2013 they want 20% of the energy renewable, 25% by 2016 and then the final 33% by 2020. When the law states renewable it means that it must come from a renewable energy producing facility.

To me this is a step up to what we all should be doing. It seems as though we should all look at California and try to do the same. I can see in the near future that many states will adapt to this same law and start to use renewable energy for most of their energy productions. Yet we would have to have many places to create any form of renewable energy. Hopefully our governor will look at more renewable energy spots here and we can be as energy efficient as California is going to be. This is a great thing to happen to this country and hopefully we will do the same.

1. How much renewable energy do you want our country to be using by the year 2030?

2. If you had a choice what types of renewable energy would you use?

3. Do you think it is possible for 33% of our energy to come from renewable sources? If so when do you think this might happen?

4. If you were a major energy producer what would you think about this law?

"Fossil Free" Fossil Fuels May Lie Deep Inside Earth

Brian Handwerk
National Geographic News
July 30, 2009

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090730-deep-fossil-fuel-supply/

About three to five miles below the surface are fossil fuels we now know of and use everyday; scientists have conjured a hypothesis that there are "fossil free" fuels being made forty to ninety-five miles below the surface.  The same scientists are now experimenting with methane (a main part of natural gas) to see if this is possible and if we can create this "fossil free" fuel on our own, and not having to wait for the Earth to refill oil pockets over the decades (it's found to be doing this where oil has been removed from already). This idea of "fossil free" fuel was first developed by Soviets during the 1950s.
So in crushing methane between two diamonds to 20,000 times stronger than below sea-level and heating it to temperatures above 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit, a mixture of ethane, propane, butane, molecular hydrogen, and graphite was made. This mixture is very similar to natural gas found in the Earth's crust.

Since natural gas is low in supply and it's already a non renewable resource, "fossil free" fuel that's made by materials we already have plenty of sounds amazing! The only negative would be that we don't know if the "fossil free" fuel is as reliable as natural gas. Furthermore, the new fuel would be more expensive because we'd find it one-hundred miles below Earth's surface or it'd be man-made (the latter is more plausible).

Questions:
1) Do you think "fossil free" fuel would put just as bad of an effect on the environment as regular fossil fuels? What would some of the effects be?
2) Who would be opposed to this new fuel? Who would support it?
3) What would there be dangers similar to nuclear energy because of the heat exposure? If so what would some of the dangers be?

Dean of Invention- Is Human Waste the New Coal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW6-1SlvtN4

In the video that I watched, it talked about how the new coal of the twenty-first century. They are deciding to use human waste as a new coal. They are taking a trailer/truck and collecting it all, then they hose all of it out and put it into a thing to contain all of it. After that, it goes through a carbonization process so that the water inside of it is extracted and it can no longer absored water. After that is done, it explains how the waste coal only takes a day to make while regular coal takes millions of years. The waste coal; however, is half as powerful. But, the waste coal is a lot more expensive so people will get 66% more energy.

I think the human waste coal is a great idea because it costs so much more money and take like so much less time. It helps the environment so much, while it also puts use to something we don't use anyway. We need to conserve our fossil fuels while we have them, and I think this is a great way and idea of starting to do so.

Questions:

1. Do you agree with this?

2. Can you think of any ways this could be used as?

3. How would you feel about using this power with a lot of things around you?

Dean of Invention- Is

The New Natural Energy?

Above is a short video that has to do with the article I read.

http://webecoist.com/2011/04/17/power-juicing-2-ads-using-oranges-to-light-the-way/

In the article I read about today, Tropicana (a fruit drink producer, as we all know) decided that to raise awareness for the benefits of fruit, they created an ad campaign to display how not only is fruit beneficial for your body, but for other resources as well. For this particular campaign, they took a group of oranges, and placed two medal rods in each orange (one rod was zinc, the other copper.) When the rods are placed in sync with the orange, a chemical change occurs within the orange, which creates a small form of power. This power allows for the flow of electrical current to take place, and sweep into whatever unit is on the opposite end of the electrical cords. In essence, oranges, lemons, and other fruits of similar chemical structures can power equipment requiring electricity! This would seem like a great alternate energy source, alas, it would be almost impossible to use.

Just to give power to charge an iphone, it would require approximately 2,380 orange slices for the iphone to be able to recharge. Just from the picture listed above under the video (the video is the filmed process of the creation of the above picture for those who didn't watch it), you can see how many oranges alone it would take just to solely charge that small amount of light. So even though we have another potential power supply, it would require many, many oranges if we ever wanted to use them to help juice (no pun intended) homes and power plants, factories, etc; much more fruit would need to be produced not just for eating, but also for powering, which is why it would be also pretty much impossible. Overall, we'll just have to keep searching for alternate energy sources. Even so, it's interesting to see what kind of creations mother nature does have in store for us.

Okay, so my questions are:

1. What are some other potential alternate energy resources we could use, other than the obvious ones we talked about/mentioned in class? (ex: I used orange juice power)

2. Why is finding an alternate energy source so important? Should we even care? Why? Explain your viewpoint on the situation.

3. What are other ways that companies can raise awareness for health and environmental problems? Name some ideas for campaigns they could use and why they would be useful, or list some you already known of.