October is almost over -- you are ending the first quarter marking period or just have finished. Congratulations!
The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.
The early labs include the topics of Significant Figures, Density (3 labs), the Separation of a Mixture (including coverage of Percent Composition), and Liquid Chromatography. These are safe labs that cover essential information, giving you time to emphasize Lab Safety and get Lab Safety Contracts signed.
There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report. This way the teacher has the option! Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.
You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now. It’s a great resource!
http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget
http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html
*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !
As stated previously, Mole Day was October 23 (10/23). You may want to start introducing Mole math.
Past Mole posts include:
01/10/2014 2nd Entry (Mole Conversions and
Moletown Map)
10/20/2014 Celebrating Mole Day
10/15/2015 Mole Mathematics
10/15/2016 Mole Day is Coming!
There are several labs in Chemistry on a Budget about The Mole Concept including “Catching Moles”, “Moles in Your Name?”, and beginning Stoichiometry with “A Chemical Reaction”.
From Oct 23, 2016:
“The Omaha Public Power District's board decided earlier this year that the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant is no longer financially sustainable.
But the shutdown is only one of the first steps of a decommissioning process that could stretch on for as many as 60 years and cost more than $1 billion.
During that process, the utility will have to decontaminate and disassemble elements of the power plant.
The nuclear plant sits on the Missouri River across from Iowa and is about 15 miles north of Omaha[, Nebraska].”
http://www.wgem.com/story/33455971/nebraska-utility-permanently-closing-fort-calhoun-nuke-plant
“The Fort Calhoun plant cranked out electricity for 43 years, and it was licensed for another 17. Decommissioning will cost up to $1.5 billion, and take up to 60 years to complete. …eating all of that is cheaper than keeping the plant in production. …
Across the U.S. demand [for nuclear power] has been flat for a decade. New capacity drives down the price. Nuclear power, with its stiff regulations and fixed expenses, can have a hard time competing. …
Nuclear waste is a big part of nuclear energy and when these plants go offline, something has to be done with it, but what?”
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/24/498842677/waste-families-left-behind-as-nuclear-plants-close
This article contains interesting charts displaying what amounts nuclear power generates over the years and a US map of numbers of nuclear power plants.
“Energy output at the 43-year-old plant has been waning since Sept. 29[,2016], when a “coasting down” period began…. [T]he atomic era at OPPD ….began in 1966, when the utility first announced its plans to build the nuclear plant on the Missouri River. By the time the power station was dedicated in May 1974, it was one of only 44 such licensed facilities.
Today, 100 nuclear reactors are licensed to operate by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But that number is falling: In 2016 alone, six nuke plants including Fort Calhoun have announced plans to shut down. All but one are closing years before their licensing terms expire.”
http://www.omaha.com/money/simply-an-economic-decision-oppd-to-close-fort-calhoun-nuclear/article_3fe6ce02-3352-11e6-a426-a7596287dd59.html
“Once closed, a nuclear plant must undergo a decommissioning process to remove or decontaminate materials and equipment that have been exposed to radioactivity. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires decommissioning to be completed within 60 years of a plant's closing.
Cleaning up the site after its closure is estimated to cost $1.2 billion, the utility said.”
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2016/06/16/nebraska-utility-close-nations-smallest-nuclear-plant/85993524/
This plant did have safety concerns in 2010 and 2011:
“[In] October [, 2010] the US Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC) wrote up the plant for a ‘violation of substantial safety significant’ related to its flood-control strategy.
Among the issues:
• The plant had stockpiled plenty of sandbags but not the sand to fill them.
• The Omaha Public Power District, which runs the plant, installed floodgates designed to keep floodwaters from overpowering the doors behind the gates. But the floodgates must be shored up on the outside – and topped – with sand bags. The support structures across the top of the gates weren't strong enough to withstand the weight of sandbags that would be place on top of them.
• Perhaps most significantly, workers upgrading the plant's cooling-water intake structure in the mid-1980s failed to seal old electrical conduits running through the structure's front wall. The structure by design sits in the river along the bank to provide cooling water to the plant. NRC inspectors noted that the unplugged conduits were below the flood height specified for the rest of the plant's critical buildings. Floodwaters jetting into the intake structure would have rendered useless pumps that are the plant's last line of defense against a loss-of-coolant accident.
The upshot: The plant was at a 100 percent risk of partial core damage if a loss-of-coolant accident occurred during a flood only two feet higher than the level projected for the current flood, according to the NRC. The company, by contrast, put the risk at between 19 and 23.9 percent.
Since then, plant workers have fixed the conduit and sand-bag problems, and the company is trying to plug the organizational gaps that allowed the problems to go unnoticed and unsolved for nearly two decades.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0627/Missouri-River-soaks-Nebraska-nuclear-plant-but-it-s-no-Fukushima
“Two nuclear-power plants in Nebraska remain threatened by Missouri River flooding [in June, 2011], including one plant where a fire briefly shut down a cooling system for spent fuel rods earlier this month.
Federal and state officials said there is no danger of a radiation leak and insisted the facilities would not see a repeat of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear-power plant disaster.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/20/floods-threaten-nebraska-nuclear-plants/
This entry continues on the reports about nuclear power issues in this blog:
2/11/2015 Introduction to Nuclear Chemistry
02/18/2015 Nuclear Chemistry – Part II (Fission,
Fusion & Half-Life)
08/06/2015 Post-Fukushima Restarts
10/30/2015 Current Event – Radioactive Waste
from WWII
10/22/2015 The Future of Nuclear Fusion
02/20/2016 Nuclear Waste and Lake Huron
03/26/2016 Nuclear Waste Storage
05/01/2016 30th Anniversary of Chernobyl
07/31/2016 Cost of Nuclear Shutdown in Germany
08/07/2016 Debate about Nuclear Power
This current event could add to a Debate about Nuclear Power described in the 08/07/2016 blog entry.
*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom. Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.
Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.
Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.
Have a great weekend!
The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.
The early labs include the topics of Significant Figures, Density (3 labs), the Separation of a Mixture (including coverage of Percent Composition), and Liquid Chromatography. These are safe labs that cover essential information, giving you time to emphasize Lab Safety and get Lab Safety Contracts signed.
There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report. This way the teacher has the option! Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.
You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now. It’s a great resource!
http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget
http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html
*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !
As stated previously, Mole Day was October 23 (10/23). You may want to start introducing Mole math.
Past Mole posts include:
01/10/2014 2nd Entry (Mole Conversions and
Moletown Map)
10/20/2014 Celebrating Mole Day
10/15/2015 Mole Mathematics
10/15/2016 Mole Day is Coming!
There are several labs in Chemistry on a Budget about The Mole Concept including “Catching Moles”, “Moles in Your Name?”, and beginning Stoichiometry with “A Chemical Reaction”.
From Oct 23, 2016:
“The Omaha Public Power District's board decided earlier this year that the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant is no longer financially sustainable.
But the shutdown is only one of the first steps of a decommissioning process that could stretch on for as many as 60 years and cost more than $1 billion.
During that process, the utility will have to decontaminate and disassemble elements of the power plant.
The nuclear plant sits on the Missouri River across from Iowa and is about 15 miles north of Omaha[, Nebraska].”
http://www.wgem.com/story/33455971/nebraska-utility-permanently-closing-fort-calhoun-nuke-plant
“The Fort Calhoun plant cranked out electricity for 43 years, and it was licensed for another 17. Decommissioning will cost up to $1.5 billion, and take up to 60 years to complete. …eating all of that is cheaper than keeping the plant in production. …
Across the U.S. demand [for nuclear power] has been flat for a decade. New capacity drives down the price. Nuclear power, with its stiff regulations and fixed expenses, can have a hard time competing. …
Nuclear waste is a big part of nuclear energy and when these plants go offline, something has to be done with it, but what?”
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/24/498842677/waste-families-left-behind-as-nuclear-plants-close
This article contains interesting charts displaying what amounts nuclear power generates over the years and a US map of numbers of nuclear power plants.
“Energy output at the 43-year-old plant has been waning since Sept. 29[,2016], when a “coasting down” period began…. [T]he atomic era at OPPD ….began in 1966, when the utility first announced its plans to build the nuclear plant on the Missouri River. By the time the power station was dedicated in May 1974, it was one of only 44 such licensed facilities.
Today, 100 nuclear reactors are licensed to operate by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But that number is falling: In 2016 alone, six nuke plants including Fort Calhoun have announced plans to shut down. All but one are closing years before their licensing terms expire.”
http://www.omaha.com/money/simply-an-economic-decision-oppd-to-close-fort-calhoun-nuclear/article_3fe6ce02-3352-11e6-a426-a7596287dd59.html
“Once closed, a nuclear plant must undergo a decommissioning process to remove or decontaminate materials and equipment that have been exposed to radioactivity. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires decommissioning to be completed within 60 years of a plant's closing.
Cleaning up the site after its closure is estimated to cost $1.2 billion, the utility said.”
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2016/06/16/nebraska-utility-close-nations-smallest-nuclear-plant/85993524/
This plant did have safety concerns in 2010 and 2011:
“[In] October [, 2010] the US Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC) wrote up the plant for a ‘violation of substantial safety significant’ related to its flood-control strategy.
Among the issues:
• The plant had stockpiled plenty of sandbags but not the sand to fill them.
• The Omaha Public Power District, which runs the plant, installed floodgates designed to keep floodwaters from overpowering the doors behind the gates. But the floodgates must be shored up on the outside – and topped – with sand bags. The support structures across the top of the gates weren't strong enough to withstand the weight of sandbags that would be place on top of them.
• Perhaps most significantly, workers upgrading the plant's cooling-water intake structure in the mid-1980s failed to seal old electrical conduits running through the structure's front wall. The structure by design sits in the river along the bank to provide cooling water to the plant. NRC inspectors noted that the unplugged conduits were below the flood height specified for the rest of the plant's critical buildings. Floodwaters jetting into the intake structure would have rendered useless pumps that are the plant's last line of defense against a loss-of-coolant accident.
The upshot: The plant was at a 100 percent risk of partial core damage if a loss-of-coolant accident occurred during a flood only two feet higher than the level projected for the current flood, according to the NRC. The company, by contrast, put the risk at between 19 and 23.9 percent.
Since then, plant workers have fixed the conduit and sand-bag problems, and the company is trying to plug the organizational gaps that allowed the problems to go unnoticed and unsolved for nearly two decades.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0627/Missouri-River-soaks-Nebraska-nuclear-plant-but-it-s-no-Fukushima
“Two nuclear-power plants in Nebraska remain threatened by Missouri River flooding [in June, 2011], including one plant where a fire briefly shut down a cooling system for spent fuel rods earlier this month.
Federal and state officials said there is no danger of a radiation leak and insisted the facilities would not see a repeat of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear-power plant disaster.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/20/floods-threaten-nebraska-nuclear-plants/
This entry continues on the reports about nuclear power issues in this blog:
2/11/2015 Introduction to Nuclear Chemistry
02/18/2015 Nuclear Chemistry – Part II (Fission,
Fusion & Half-Life)
08/06/2015 Post-Fukushima Restarts
10/30/2015 Current Event – Radioactive Waste
from WWII
10/22/2015 The Future of Nuclear Fusion
02/20/2016 Nuclear Waste and Lake Huron
03/26/2016 Nuclear Waste Storage
05/01/2016 30th Anniversary of Chernobyl
07/31/2016 Cost of Nuclear Shutdown in Germany
08/07/2016 Debate about Nuclear Power
This current event could add to a Debate about Nuclear Power described in the 08/07/2016 blog entry.
*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom. Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.
Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.
Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.
Have a great weekend!
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