May 04 2010
Today we talked about hydrogen and how it can be used to power vehicles. Of the forty-four free response questions on previous A.P. exams, none have addressed hydrogen power, so Mr. Willard said this would be “good knowledge to have in our pockets.” First we reviewed what we already knew about hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most abundant element [...]
Apr 16 2010
Last year, a student send me a 12-minute bit from 60 minutes on coal power. The piece is centered on an interview with Jim Rogers of Charlotte’s own Duke Energy. Watch this, then read on: *IF the embedded video will not play, try this link: Powered by Coal (60 minutes) So…what do we do in [...]
Apr 15 2010
Here is today’s presentation. While biomass is valued for being essentially carbon-neutral, you cannot ignore all the potential drawbacks to agriculture (erosion, fertilizer, pesticides, feedlots, etc…). Biomass energy View more presentations from Derrick Willard.
Apr 14 2010
_______________________________________________________ Today in class we discussed wind power– what it is, how it works, the future of windpower, and the environmental and economical trade offs of generating energy from the earth’s natural wind production as a result of unequal heating of the globe. Wind power in the past: Wind power has been around for ages. It [...]
Apr 12 2010
Today we took a brief look at solar power. Solar makes up a tiny fraction (<1%) of the commercial energy market, but it is doubling every two years. I tried to distinguish between solar electricity technologies and solar thermal (heat) technologies. When considering solar electricity, it can be done on a small scale (homes/buildings) and [...]
