PDS AP Environmental Science 5th Period 2010-11

Wind Energy, put simply, is using the wind to move turbines, which then in turn provide power. The turbines are mounted atop very tall towers in order to capture the most wind. This is by far one of the most sustainable and cleanest types of energy available. The wind turbines produce no toxic or heat trapping emissions, creating an extremely viable energy alternative. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, Wind Energy is becoming much more cost-competitive and is on the rise. In 2007 and 2008 alone more wind turbines were installed than in the last 20 years combined, making this an almost 27 billion dollar investment. The turbines are pretty complex pieces of material, so I hope this pictures helps to show the parts. Although they do seem complicated they are becoming incresingly cost-efficient

I found a really good video to use to help explain this process throughly and simply. Unfortunately my computer is not letting me embed this video so I hope it’s not too much trouble to navigate away from the page, it’s definately worth it.

http://science.discovery.com/videos/deconstructed-how-wind-turbines-work.html

Also found a great link to an article explaining how these wind turbines are becoming more and more efficient in creating energy. The article comes from the Alternative Energy group and is pretty neat.

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/efficiency-of-wind-turbine-blades/

*Note: SargeK moved to the other class, but since we have no one to do geothermal, here is a guess post by him.

Earth's Natural Heat

Geothermal Energy is essentially using the earth’s natural heat for power. One way the process works is the heat from the earth warms water, which evaporates to steam. The steam is then used to turn turbines that then generate electricity. Geothermal energy is a good clean way to power and heat the world’s towns and cities without needing too much coal. There are many towns around the world reliant on geothermal energy, such as this one in China:

The concept of using the earth to heat our homes is pretty cool, if you are more interested in figuring out how this direct geothermal energy works, check out this link from howstuffworks.com: http://www.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/geothermal-energy.htm.

Keeping the Japan Nuclear Crisis in mind, you can’t help but wonder if other sources of energy can/would help Japan recover. To ease you curiosity, check out this news report about the potential for geothermal energy in Japan: http://www.sify.com/finance/analysis-hot-air-can-geothermal-help-japan-in-crisis-news-economy-ldyoksdhfid.html. In the grand scheme of things, geothermal energy provides a generally renewable source of energy. Although it cannot be used to fuel vehicles like biomass has potential to do, it is very efficient for heating and cooling buildings. Geothermal energy is a solid investment in the world’s future.

When you hear the words “Nuclear Superpower” the first thing you’d probably think about would be an image from the Cold War with stockpiles of nuclear warheads to kill off the planet earth several times over. But that was then – come to the 21′s century, bud. Sure we still have big bombs in commission, but ironically we have also adapted the most destructive weapon for non destructive purposes – Energy.

So y’all are probably thinking “whoa, is that possible? Is its power level over 9000???” Sure it is! but you need to know how electricity is typically generated in order to understand how nuclear energy works. Heres a simplified rundown of how we get most of our electrical energy (in reverse).

• Electrical energy always comes from spinning magnets, or spinning some sort of shaft. thus: “Super merry-go-round” + magic = Electricity =
• We power this super super merry-go-round not with electricity (because that would be stupid) but my moving some sort of gas or fluid through a turbine. its like holding a propeller and blowing into it — more magical moving particles + turbine + more magic =  super merry-go-round
• In most power plants this fluid is pressurized steam that is forced though tight chambers to get them moving fairly quickly. we get steam though the magic of heating water. — magical water + something that has hot air (like Mr. W, JK!) + even more magic = moving steam (moving particles)

http://www.freeinfosociety.com/images/science/nuclearenergy1.jpg

So thats how we generate most electricity in a nutshell. its 1 part basic physics and 3 parts awesome magic. The only thing that differs between most typical power plant designs is how we heat the water. Obviously with a nuclear plant we use a nuclear reaction (not nukes). Here, instead of burning coal, we have a reactor core that is filled with radioactive material. This material can easily fission (the whole atom can be broken, yeah they told you atoms couldnt do that, well they can.) into smaller parts, however in such a reaction, although the number of particles is conserved, mass is not. the mass is converted into energy (heat). Here’s how that works:

• Fissionable Uranium 235 is fairly stable by itself, but with the addition of a free nutron it becomes Uranium 236 which is highly unstable. — Uranium 235 + magical nutrons = really angry Uranium 236
• The pissed off Uranium 236 decides it doesnt like itself so it splits into two smaller atoms in a bloody civil war creating smaller Krypton and Barium atoms as well as 3 nutron Al-Quida radicals. (this is a really hot situation so there is a lot of heat released)
• The 3 free radicals run around and upset other happy Uranium 235 and repeats this process. Its like a positive feedback loop, except it gets VERY hot. Enough to make many pots of coffee.

Here’s a video that shows how this works.

But enough wharbl garbl, if its so good, why dont we use it?

Unfortunately, the Al-Quida radicals overcome Uranium 235 and cause too many of them to fission too fast creating too much heat. This situation in a nuclear power plant is called a Meltdown or where the core gets too hot and the whole thing basically “melts down” into a a soupy mixture that spews out radiation unsafely; just like the one in Chernobyl in the 20th century when they couldnt shut down their reactor in time. But even today, we are still having problems avoiding potentially catastrophic events from nuclear power. A recent tsunami that hit Japan has crippled safety features in a power plant that has become unstable. Here, like Chernobyl, they cannot seem to stop their reactor completely, but they are making every effort to keep it cool with seawater. HERE’S a link to what is really going on out in Japan.

Aside from these “minor” problems in today’s current events, Nuclear power has a lot to offer us in terms of energy. FIND OUT MORE TOMORROW IN CLASS!

*Note: Since no one took biomass fuels in our smaller class, here is an intro post from AnnaSB in the other:

To understand what biomass energy is, first one must know what biomass is. Biomass is defined as the total mass of living matter in a given unit of environmental area.

These are examples of biomass

http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr209/videotellem/types-of-biomass.jpg

Biomass energy is simply the taking of that biomass or any organic material and using it as fuel by combusting it, turing it into a gas fuel, or turning it into liquid fuel.

Is biomass energy even a useful form of energy? Scotland seems to think so. Just recently Scotland has set its sights on becoming more dependent on renewable energy sources, in particular, they are interested in making it so that some of their heat energy comes from biomass energy.

This is a short video shows a good definition and summary of what biomass is and how it works. Biomass Energy.

Is biomass energy efficient? How is it considered a clean energy if it still releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Is it cost effective? These are all relevant question that will be answered during our presentation. I hope this gave you a good first look at what biomass energy is and has piqued your interest maybe just a little!

We didn’t have time to discuss some “new” sources of fossil fuels, namely oil (tar) sands and oil shale. Your book briefly mentions these resources. Our neighbor to the north happens to rich in oil sands, which contains oil in a semi-solid state known as bitumen. This substance must be heated before the liquid crude oil can be extracted. This 2 minute CBS 60 Minutes video clip shows an oil sands mine and what the bitumen looks like:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1225047n&tag=related;photovideo

As you can see in the video, this involves a lot of strip mining–a very destructive process that means much deforestation (in Canadian taiga), habitat loss, and biodiversity loss. Look at this image from a recent National Geographic article on oil sands mining:

Strip Mining the Canadian Oil Sands

Such destruction is one of the main reasons environmentalists oppose this method of harvesting oil. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers insist that such mines undergo extensive reclamation (by law), and so the environmental damage is not permanent. Here is a short YouTube video by CAPP showing the mining process through reclamation:

An economic drawback to using oil sands is the amount of energy (heat) and water that must be use in the refining process to harvest the liquid oil. Check out the steps of the refining process at HowStuffWorks.com. If crude oil prices are low, this expensive mining and refining operation may not make make a profit. But, if like the CBS video report states, Canada has enough of the stuff to rival Saudi Arabia’s crude oil reserves then we may have a way to break from of our dependence on OPEC supplies. America already imports most of its crude oil–maybe all that cash will now go to a trusted democracy?

For those who missed the first day of our energy unit, here is the kick off:

I tried to give you a sense of just how destructive surface mining can be to habitats and biodiversity. I’ve also found a great slideshow by a photographer named Daniel Shea on NPR. There are only 15 slides, and it is worth the 30 seconds of your time to take a look at the impact of mountaintop removal on rural Appalachia. This has really become an environmental justice issue in West Virginia and Kentucky. If you want to read great (but depressing) book on the issue sometime, try Lost Mountain, by Erik Reese. For folks who live near these mining sites, it is very hard to believe in such as thing as “clean coal.”

Mountaintop removal/valley fill coal mining in southern West Virginia in May 2003 Photo by Vivian Stockman, May 30, 2003

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/

The EPA has been taking a hard look at destructive mountaintop removal mining practices. A federal judge in West Virginia took steps to block some types of permits for the practice in the last two years. NPR has a short report on this legal action too.

If all this is too serious, check out this recent Colbert Report on mountaintop removal-hilarious:

Funny, yes, but do you think Mr. Colbert should make a joke of the issue? Is that his message?

Subsurface coal mining has its own set of issues. Click here for an interactive tour of a subsurface coal mine. Or, if you have time check out this 40 minute episode of “30 Days” with Morgan Spurlock (the “Supersize Me” guy) on Hulu. *Note: Hulu is blocked at school.

Today we watched a good bit of the PBS documentary Empty Oceans, Empty Nets. Feel free to click around the movie web site if you want want to explore the issues further. What were the main points?

1. The Problem. Yes, we seem to be overfishing the oceans. In the last 4 years, numerous articles have come out predicting the collapse of most commercial fisheries by 2050. If you have 5 minutes, read this very current article cleverly titled, “Aquacalypse Now: The End of Fish.” This brief public service announcement give some reasons WHY this is happening and what we might do about it.

2. Causes. As mentioned in the PSA above, many of the “industrial” fishing methods used by large vessels or factory ships have the potential to remove fish from our oceans in massive quantities. Check out the animations at this Monterery Bay Aquarium web site of bottom-trawling, longlining, and purse-seine fishing techniques. Additionally, each of these method capture different types of bycatch (bykill). The movie we watched stated that for every pound of shrimp caught in the US fisheries, there may be five pounds of bycatch!  Sometimes, it may include endangered animals like sea turtles.

US Fishing Methods

Image source: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_gear.aspx

3. Solutions: We saw several solutions throughout the film.

• Since this is a commons issue (oceans fisheries), governments can regulate fisheries by setting quotas in their territorial waters. Anything involving species migrating across oceans and/or beyond those 200 miles offshore has to be addressed by international treaty, but enforcement becomes problematic.
• Governments can establish marine protected areas (MPAs), marine reserves, or marine sanctuaries in their territorial waters. Check this link for the US system of MPAs. These are safe areas for fish to hide and breed as fishing there is usually banned.
• Consumers can create more demand for fish taken from sustainable fisheries. If you care about making a personal impact by your seafood choices then you can download a pocket guide from this web site. There is also an app for mobile phones/ iPhones at that link.

Sustainable Seafood Guide

Image source: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx

Much of this is covered in your text, but I think it is hard to really appreciate the impact of these commercial scale fishing methods unless you SEE them. You are always welcome to borrow the DVD from me…

In class yesterday we learned about the worst oil spill in the United States until last summer, the Exxon Valdez.

Exxon Valdez (1989)

History: In 1989 Mr. Hazelwood was drunk driving a huge ship in Alaska named the Valdez, which was carrying oil for the company Exxon. The ship collided with some coral and since it was only single hulled, it caused a huge hole in the ship spilling oil. An estimated 257,000 barrels of oil was released into the ocean.

Impact: The oil had a negative effect on the Alaskan wildlife. For birds, the oil weighed down their feathers, making it impossible f0r them to fly and insulate themselves. Birds that did not freeze to death died because they ingested the oil trying to clean it off. The sea

otters that lived in the area were in jeopardy as

well; oil also destroyed their insulation and it caused damage totheir eyes, lungs, and intestines.

Clean Up Methods: The Coast Guard uses physical, chemical, and biological remedies to get rid of an oil spill

Physical:

Skimmers:  Since oil is less dense than water, they could skim the oil off the surface of the water using skimmers

Booms: Booms corral oil, not allowing it to spread out and making it easier to skim

Chemical:

Dispersants: dispersants are oil solvents that can break it down into smaller parts, giving it more surface area so that the natural bacteria in the ocean can help get rid of it faster

Biological:

Bioremediation: bioremediation is when scientists use a ‘fertilizer’ to force the natural bacteria in the environment to reproduce, resulting in a larger population that can clean up the oil

Bioremediation in Alaska

Comparison to BP Spill: The spill last summer in the Gulf of Mexico was not caused by an oil tanker, but by an explosion in a drilling rig, which was about a mile underwater. This made it harder to stop the oil from leaking into the ocean. By the time they finally could, around 4.9 millions barrels of oil had been released in the Gulf of Mexico, almost ten times more oil than the Exxon Valdez.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill (2010)

Sources of Petroleum Input in Oceans Each Year on Average (Metric Tons):

1. Natural Seeps (600,000)

2.Consumption (480,000)

3. Transport (150,000) – Valdez incident

4. Extraction(38,000) – BP incident

Legislation:Response to the Valdez

Oil Pollution Act (1990) – requires oil companies to have double hulled boats, and requires companies to pay a fine for the damage as well as pay for the clean up.

Sources:

Exxon Valdez: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/photogalleries/exxon-valdez-anniversary/images/primary/090323-03-valdez-tanker_big.jpg

Bioremediation:

http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/data/media/17/bioremediation-project_3253.jpg

Gulf Oil Spill:

http://www.sevensidedcube.net/wp-content/uploads/oil6.jpg

*Again, a guest post since our class got cut short the other day. This one by EvanR.  He linked to a few nice (short) videos with more on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Some scientists have estimated that there is 315 billion pounds of plastic floating in the oceans. There is not an island of plastic, as some rumors say, but more of a soup of smaller particles of plastic and ocean.

Particles of plastic collected from the ocean.

Out of all the plastic in the ocean, only about 20% originated from ships at sea; the other 80% came from land. Some cities have seperate wastewater and stormwater systems where wastewater travels to a treatment facility and stormwater flows directly into natural bodies of water without any treatment. Other cities have a combined system of wastewater and stormwater, but when a heavy rain comes overflow of the system occurs which allows polluted water to flow into the ocean. No matter the water treatment system polluted stormwater finds its way back into the ocean carrying literally tons of plastics.

Without a doubt, plastic in the ocean causes a mryaid of evironmental issues, such as:

1. Plastics are extremely durable, “every bit of plastic that has been made, except for the small amount that has been incinerated still exists today.” Plastics are so durable because they don’t biodegrade, but rather photodegrade. That is, plastic just breaks down into smaller and smaller peices. Bottom-feeders can mistake these small plastic pieces as zooplankton, and seabirds can mistake bottle caps as food. A video of drowing the ocean in plastic.
2. Plastic serves as a cruise for organisms to sail the ocean currents causing biotic mixing–this is an invasive species vector. Organisms, like barnacles, live and grow on the floating plastic debris and drift on the ocean currents, spreading North American aquatic species to the coast of Japan as an example.
   

   Organisms living on bottles can float around on the oceans currents to foreign waters

3. Plastic can also act as little poison pills. Because plastic is hydrophobic and lipophilic (wont dissolve in water but will take up fats and grease), it can absorb oils and accumulate toxins, and some fish have been found to eat small plastic pieces which speeds up bioaccumulation in organisms.

Here is another video of the sythetic ocean

Note: A guest post by CarolineJ in the other class-good recap of lessons learned:

On any given day, each one of goes to the bathroom at least a few times, and most likely without any thoughts of where our waste is going or what it will become. After venturing to the Mallard Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility; however, what happens when we flush, at least for me, is a much more prevalent thought. When we got to the treatment facility and stepped off of the bus, I think almost every single one of us had something to say about the smell, but little did we know that the worst was still to come. My group began our tour in the office building looking at an aerial view of the entire facility.

aerial view of Sugar Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility

As you can see, it’s pretty big and pretty spread out. It is designed this way so that each process is separate. One important feature to note that may not be apparent from the above image is that the facility is located on a long, gradual hill. Rather than pumping the water between processes, the water is pumped only one time from its initial incoming from the sewage to the top of the hill. For the remaining processes, the water flows down hill so that less energy is used and the process is more efficient in general.

The treatment process begins when we flush the toilet, and our sewage waste travels through a series of piping systems to one of Charlotte’s multiple wastewater treatment plants. As the wastewater reaches the end of the piping system, it flows into somewhat of a temporary holding tank with screen systems attached. These bar screens reach into the water and anything solid such as toilet paper, condoms, tampons, dead goldfish, etc. get trapped on the screens, which pull these objects out of the water and dispose of them in a dumpster along with any “grit” like undigested corn, gum, etc.–all of which most likely ends up in a landfill. Next, a cyclone type machine spins the still heavy water down a tube and it is moved into a system of clarifiers.

heaps of gross gunk from our sewage...toilet paper, condoms, tampons...and it smelled HORRIBLE

this machine sorted through the "grit" which consists of corn, sand, gum, etc

In each cone-shaped primary clarifier, the wastewater’s velocity is slowed and the solid components of the water settle to the bottom. Giant rotating weirs move circularly around each clarifier, scraping the bottom where the solids have accumulated and draining them out. The surface of the water is also scraped of remaining fats, oil, greases, and the resulting somewhat cleaned water moves on to the next step.  At least 60% of suspended solids are removed at this point in the process.

The heart of the facility is found in the aeration tank (also called activated sludge). The aeration process is a biological process that takes 6-8 hours as organisms are used to break down the excessive ammonia and nitrite found in the water. As a product of these anaerobic organisms at work, the water in the tank is coated with a thick layer of light, brown bubbling foam. (We were all surprised to learn that this foam was not floating poop.) From the aeration tank, the water is moved on to secondary clarifiers and as the solid, heavy water once again settles to the bottom, it is scraped and drained out and back into the aeration tank to feed microorganisms. At this point, the water is (believe it or not) 99.9% cleaned.

This is a photo of the products of the aeration process. Note the brown foam on top.

(Fun fact: As Emily and I reflected upon the horrible idea of jumping into this foamy tank, our tour guide noted that legend has it that because of the way the tank works with suction and because SO much oxygen is produced, there is no surface tension to this water and so if you jumped it, you would immediately sink 20 feet to the bottom and basically drown in poop. We decided this would be the worst possible way to die.)

After the water moves from clarifier > aeration tank > more clarifiers, the water must be filtered one more time before it can be disinfected and released back into the environment. The water is moved from the last clarifiers to another large tank where mixers churn the water so that it does not become septic. In these tanks, traveling bridge filters use charcoal and dividers with anthracites and sand to filter the water. The traveling bridge works by forcing the water through the sand so that the particles collect in the sand and charcoal leaving the water cleaner and without solids.

Next, the water is moved from the filtering system to the disinfection stage. Originally, chlorine was used to disinfect the water; however, the problem with the chlorine treatment was that even though it killed every single microorganism in the water, as the water was then released into the environment, the chlorine continued to kill everything in its path which proved destructive to the stream or creeks the water was released into. Recently, more and more wastewater facilities have begun to use UV rays to disinfect the water. This process works by using the damaging properties of UV rays to basically microwave the microorganisms in the water, scrambling their DNA so that they can’t reproduce. This means that when these organisms reach the environment once again they will decrease and die out in population.

The result of this entire process is a relatively clean water that is suitable and safe for the environment, but not for direct contact with people. After all steps have been completed, sewage > clarifier > aeration > more clarifiers > filters > disinfection, the water is either released into a nearby water source, in this case Mallard Creek, or it is put in some sort of a holding tank. At the facility we visited, some of the water was mixed with hyperchloride which is not safe water for humans but can be used to water golf courses, for example, for free. The remaining solid waste from this entire process is heated for about 45 days, the resulting products being a small amount of water, gases, etc. which are spun into a black material which is used for fertilizers which can’t be used to grow crops but instead are used for growing grass which farmers can turn over to increase an areas fertility, etc. We all wondered what happened when there was a big rain and all of the rainwater filled up the open clarifiers, aeration tank, etc. The facility is built to contain about 20 million gallons of water, so rain is not a problem. There is also a rain retention basin in the middle of the facility as well which can hold up to 50 million gallons of water and stores rain water and other excess raw sewage.

The last part of our day consisted of testing the water in Dragonfly pond at Reedy Creek Nature Preserve for turbidity, pH, temperature, phosphate, nitrate, and dissolved oxygen/%DO saturation. (We assumed coliform bacteria to be present)

this is my group conducting our lab tests next to Dragonfly Pond.

1 of 7 tests we conducted, turbidity is measured in jackson turbidity units by chart to the right of water container.

After conducting these physical/chemical tests, we moved to the lab where we focused on bioindex which is basically how clean a body of water, such as a stream, is based on what organisms it can support. All organisms have a different toleration for pollution, an example of an animal that can live in very clean water being a mayfly or a stonefly, while the dirtiest waters are home to organisms like leeches. We used a Dichotomus Key to look at and identify several insects, the process necessary for determining the bioindex of any body of water.