"Wisdom begins in wonder" – Socrates
Author: Isaac Gendler
The UK to Shutter Its Last Coal Plant by 2025
12/19/18
“Will Britain really be coal-free by 2025?”
Recently, the United Kingdom has announced that it will shutter its last coal plant by 2025 to combat climate change and air pollution. We at Isaac’s Science Blog welcome this move and are very happy to see the U.K move forward boldly in its climate plans.
How Energy Storage Can Increase Carbon Emissions
12/08/18
“How can energy storage increase carbon emissions?”
Numerous renewable energy proponents around the world are promoting energy storage as the solution to intermittency. However, if not planned out carefully, energy storage can be very unsustainable. This is because energy storage can store any type of energy, clean or not, with a preference for cheaper inputs. This means that cheaper overnight coal might be used for storage and then placed against more expensive natural gas or solar. In addition, energy is lost during storage, so the net efficiency drops as well. This is How Energy Storage Can Increase Carbon Emissions.
Image and research credit Hittinger, E. S., & Azevedo, I. M. (2015). Bulk energy storage increases United States electricity system emissions. Environmental science & technology, 49(5), 3203-3210.
Something to think about when you turn on the lights.
12/17/18
“What’s a really trippy fact about when you turn on the lights?”
When turning on the lights, it’s easy to think that the electricity just magically appears. But something much more complex is actually happening. Everytime you activate an electrical appliance, electrons need to be generated and sent directly to transmission. This means that all the electricity you receive is brand new! This only happens if there is no storage present on the gird however. Just something to think about when you turn on the lights.
How Heat Transfer is Used to Model Climate Change
12/16/18
“How is Heat Transfer Used to Model Climate Change?”
Heat Transfer is one of the foundational course for a Mechanical Engineer. But internal combustion engines and HVAC are not the only things that the theory can be applied to. Climate Scientists will use many of the same Heat Transfer equations when designing climate models. In this way, Heat Transfer is Used to Model Climate Change.
Image credit singularityhub.com
Climate Change Model Verification
12/15/18
“How can we verify climate change models?”
Climate models are extremely useful for helping us predict the impacts of climate change. But how can we verify them? Well, what if we were to map their mathematical functions to historical data and see if they accurately predict temperature rises? If it turns out to be correct, then the model has a good chance of being valid. This Climate Model Verification, often known as hindcasting, gives our methods validity for future policy work.
Image credit http://www.skepticalscience.com
Climate Change Modeling
12/14/18
“How can we create models for the future climate?”
We seem to hear about the predictions of the future climate all the time in the media. Whether it be a warning if we go 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels or the ever-increasing rate of global warming. But how do we actually obtain this information? Well, people from a variety of different academic disciplines come together to make mathematical models that take in a variety of complex terrestrial processes and their interactions with each other and then layer it on to a physical model of the earth to produce a simulation of what will happen. This is known as Climate Change Modeling and is one of the most important tools that humans have to make policy goals.
Image credit http://www.gfdl.noaa.go
Accelerometers
12/13/18
“How can we measure the acceleration of an object?”
Acceleration can be one of the most important things for an engineer to measure. But we will need a tool to accomplish this. This is how we can use accelerometers, which measure the stresses on piezoelectric material to determine acceleration.
Gyroscopes
12/12/18
“How can we measure angular velocity and distance traveled?”
When working with machines that undergo angular movement such as motors, it is very useful to know their rotational velocity. This can be accomplished with the use of Gyroscopes. The velocity of a gyroscope can be integrated to find the distance traveled.
Image credit Wikipedia
Column Space
12/11/18
“What is the space spanned by the linearly independent columns of a matrix?”
Matrices are likely to have at least a few linearly independent columns. The span of this space will result in a vector space known as a Column Space. The dimension of the column space is equivalent to the number of linearly independent vectors.
Image credit d2vlcm61l7u1fs.cloudfront.net
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