Blog Posts

flint, michigan after water crisis

2/8/2019

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warmer oceans reduce ocean kelp forests

2/1/2019

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world's oldest periodic table

1/25/2019

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The era of Easy recycling may be at an end

1/18/2019

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Graphene water filter for ocean water

1/11/2019

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.

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.

A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals… this is the lab book for you.
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what I was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

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 !

“Approximately 783 million people, or 11 percent of humans on the planet, live without access to clean water for drinking, irrigation, and hundreds of other uses. Researchers in the United Kingdom seek to solve that problem. They have created a graphene sleeve out of carbon that can filter and desalinate ocean water, making it drinkable and effectively solving our freshwater crisis.

Large-scale desalination plants have been around for years, sure. But they’re pricey, not real great for the environment, and can actually hurt marine life. These graphene sieves? Not so much.”
https://www.ft.com/content/d768030e-d8ec-11e7-9504-59efdb70e12f

“Graphene is an allotrope (form) of carbon consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. It is a semimetal with small overlap between the valence and the conduction bands (zero bandgap material). It is the basic structural element of many other allotropes of carbon, such as graphite, diamond, charcoal, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. ...

It can be considered as an indefinitely large aromatic molecule, the ultimate case of the family of flat polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Graphene has many uncommon properties. It is the strongest material ever tested, conducts heat and electricity efficiently, and is nearly transparent.

Graphene shows a large and nonlinear diamagnetism, greater than that of graphite, and can be levitated by neodymium magnets.

Scientists theorized about graphene for years. It had been produced unintentionally in small quantities for centuries through the use of pencils and other similar graphite applications. It was observed originally in electron microscopes in 1962, but it was studied only while supported on metal surfaces. The material was later rediscovered, isolated, and characterized in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester. Research was informed by existing theoretical descriptions of its composition, structure, and properties. This work resulted in the two winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010’ ‘for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.’ “
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene

“A UK-based team of researchers [in April 2017] has created a graphene-based sieve capable of removing salt from seawater.

The sought-after development could aid the millions of people without ready access to clean drinking water.
The promising graphene oxide sieve could be highly efficient at filtering salts, and will now be tested against existing desalination membranes.

It has previously been difficult to manufacture graphene-based barriers on an industrial scale.

Reporting their results in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, scientists from the University of Manchester, led by Dr Rahul Nair, show how they solved some of the challenges by using a chemical derivative called graphene oxide.

Isolated and characterised by a University of Manchester-led team in 2004, graphene comprises a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. Its unusual properties, such as extraordinary tensile strength and electrical conductivity, have earmarked it as one of the most promising materials for future applications.

But it has been difficult to produce large quantities of single-layer graphene using existing methods, such as chemical vapour deposition (CVD). Current production routes are also quite costly. “
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39482342

“Graphene-oxide membranes have long been considered a promising candidate for filtration and desalination, but although many teams have developed membranes that could sieve large particles out of water, getting rid of salt requires even smaller sieves that scientists have struggled to create.

One big issue is that, when graphene-oxide membranes are immersed in water, they swell up, allowing salt particles to flow through the engorged pores.

The Manchester team overcame this by building walls of epoxy resin on either side of the graphene oxide membrane, stopping it from swelling up in water.

This allowed them to precisely control the pore size in the membrane, creating holes tiny enough to filter out all common salts from seawater.

The key to this is the fact that when common salts are dissolved in water, they form a 'shell' of water molecules around themselves.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-create-a-graphene-based-sieve-that-turns-seawater-into-drinking-water

“When the common salts are dissolved in water, they always form a ‘shell’ of water molecules around the salts molecules. This allows the tiny capillaries of the graphene-oxide membranes to block the salt from flowing along with the water. Water molecules are able to pass through the membrane barrier and flow anomalously fast which is ideal for application of these membranes for desalination.

Professor Rahul Nair, at The University of Manchester said: ‘Realisation of scalable membranes with uniform pore size down to atomic scale is a significant step forward and will open new possibilities for improving the efficiency of desalination technology.’ “
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/graphene-sieve-turns-seawater-into-drinking-water/

“The graphene-oxide breakthrough has been welcomed by scientists in the field as a promising development, but some are cautious of the next steps.

‘The selective separation of water molecules from ions by physical restriction of interlayer spacing opens the door to the synthesis of inexpensive membranes for desalination,’ wrote Ram Devanathan of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in an accompanying news-and-views article in the journal.

More work still needs to be done to test the durability of the barriers and to confirm the membrane is resistant to ‘fouling by organics, salt and biological material,’ he said.

Water treatment with membranes that separate water molecules from ions, pathogens and pollutants has been proposed as an energy-efficient solution to the freshwater crisis, Devanathan added.

‘The ultimate goal is to create a filtration device that will produce potable water from seawater or waste water with minimal energy input.’ “
https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/04/health/graphene-sieve-drinkable-seawater/index.html

Past Ocean Water blog posts include:

05/25/2018   Students Invent Filter for Water Purification

07/27/2018   Invention for Water Conservation

08/10/2018   Oil Spill Sponge

You may have Midterm Examinations coming up, so for your reference:

01/04/2015     Midterm Examinations

*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 week!

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china is a renewable energy champion

1/4/2019

0 Comments

The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.

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.

A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals… this is the lab book for you.
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what I was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

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 !

Happy New Year 2019!

“DATONG, China – [According to a 10/9/17 article,}, Scott Pruitt, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, declared Monday that ‘the war on coal is over.’ He told an audience in Kentucky that he plans to repeal an Obama-era rule that limits carbon emissions from power plants that burn coal.

China, on the other hand, is doing the opposite. Coal is on the way out and solar power is coming in.
On a farm in northern China, they are planting a new crop: Nearly 200,000 solar panels in the heart of coal country.
In the south, China flipped the switch on the world's largest floating solar installation -- built on top of a lake created by an abandoned coal mine. Projects like these helped China double its solar capacity last year. It is now twice as big as the U.S. capacity.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-moves-toward-coal-china-bets-big-on-solar/

“At present, China leads the world in terms of wind and solar power capacity. And with large-scale industrial applications, the costs have fallen substantially. A good example is photovoltaic (PV) technology: the price of PV modules decreased from about 30 Yuan per watt in 2007 to about 10 Yuan in 2012, and by 2017 it had decreased further to just 2 Yuan per watt.

The success of China's renewable energy drive fully illustrates the effectiveness of China’s on-grid tariff subsidies. The advantage of the on-grid tariff policy - through which the government can make renewable energy production more competitive and attractive to businesses and investors - is that it anchors the revenue of power generation throughout the entire life cycle. In this way, it conveys a clear price signal to investors, and can effectively support the early stages of renewable energy development.”
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/05/china-is-a-renewable-energy-champion-but-its-time-for-a-new-approach/

“China is now the world’s largest backer of green energy, accounting for 17% of global investment in the sector. According to Greenpeace, it installed an average of more than one wind turbine every hour of every day in 2015. It also covered the equivalent of one soccer field with solar panels every hour, action that may allow China to meet its 2020 goals for solar installation two years ahead of schedule. By 2030 it is hoped that cleaner energy will help reduce China’s CO₂ emissions by 54% from 2010 levels.

This is good news because the inescapable fact is that efforts to mitigate climate change are doomed to fail if the Chinese do not get on board. Compared with other countries, China still has a long way to go. Britain, for instance, recently managed a day without coal for the first time in more than 130 years, while other countries have drastically cut their carbon footprint.

However, energy policy is, as with most aspects of Chinese life, more complicated and more susceptible to internal and external pressures than many observers believe. The reaction of the Chinese leadership to these pressures gives us hope that the country can free itself of dirty coal, and that this day may come sooner rather than later.”
https://www.juancole.com/2017/05/chinas-covering-football.html

“Solar is an incredible source of energy and could be an answer to climate change so it’s no surprise that there are lots of incredible facts about solar power and solar technology.
From the weird and wonderful to how solar panels could benefit your day-to-day life, here are our top 10 solar facts…

1. The sun sends more energy to earth in an hour than humans use in a year

430 quintillion (that’s 430 followed by 18 zeros) Joules of energy hits the Earth from the sun every hour while we use 410 quintillion Joules each year. Not only that, the light from the sun carrying the energy only takes around 8 minutes to make the 91 million mile journey.

2. Enough solar panels are installed in China every hour to cover a football pitch

Not only is China adopting solar technology at quite a pace, they’re also coming up with creative ways to install them – Northern China is home to a giant solar panda and Southern China can boast the world’s largest floating solar installation. So it looks like they’ll just keep installing them. Well, until they run out of space…

3. A solar-powered home can reduce CO2 emissions by 100 tons within 30 years

100 tons might sound like a lot and that’s because it is and this statistic even takes into account the energy used to manufacture the solar panels.

4. Charles Fritts developed the first ever solar cell panel in 1883

American inventor, Charles Fritts, is credited with having invented the first solar cell panel by coating selenium with a thin layer of gold. It had an efficiency of 1-2% which looks small compared to the 10-20% efficiency of modern solar panels on UK homes.

5. If we covered a small fraction of the Sahara desert with photovoltaic cells, we could generate all of the world’s electricity requirements

The sun shines brighter on the Sahara Desert than anywhere else on Earth and covering roughly 1% of it in solar panels could meet the electricity requirements of everyone on Earth.

6. Countries now use solar energy to power spaceships

One example is the Mars Observer which used an expandable 6 panel solar array to generate its energy from the sun.

7. In March 2015 the Solar Impulse plane left Abu Dhabi for the first ever round the world trip in an aircraft powered by solar energy

Carrying more than 17,000 solar panels, the Solar Impulse 2 spent 23 days in the air, making 23 stops along the way.

8. Solar panels don’t need direct sunlight to work

Solar panels generate energy from daylight rather than direct sunlight so will work on cloudy days. They just won’t be generating anything during the night but installing a solar battery means that you can still use solar energy during the night.

9. India is home to the world’s largest solar power park which consists of 2.5 million solar panels

Located in Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu, the world’s largest solar park covers 2,500 acres and has a capacity of 648 megawatts which is thought to make enough power for around 750,000 people.

10. You can generate energy together with your local community with a solar garden

Solar gardens or shared renewable energy plants can generate electricity that’s shared around a community which means that you don’t need to have the panels installed on your property.”
https://www.solarguide.co.uk/facts-about-solar#/

“Air pollution isn’t the only reason China is so serious about renewables, but it’s a powerful one. And it was a big part of what put President Xi Jinping in a position to announce, in a landmark 2014 deal with President Obama, that China’s emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide would peak around 2030, a pledge that became the centerpiece of its commitments under the Paris climate agreement.

It appears now to be ahead of schedule in meeting that goal. Official figures can be unreliable, but they show that coal consumption, the main driver of China’s carbon emissions, fell in 2016 for the third straight year. And because China has clearly decided that cutting coal use—the fuel powers much of its heavy industry as well as providing electricity— is in its own interest, it’s a trend that’s likely to continue even as the United States, under President Trump, abandons Obama’s climate agenda.

Because China accounts for half the world’s coal consumption, that’s good news not just for the health of those who must breathe its air, but also for the wider effort to check runaway global warming.”
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/china-renewables-energy-climate-change-pollution-environment/
“The renewables rollout has not been without its troubles. Vast fields of wind turbines have been erected in the country’s sparsely populated northwest, far from the big cities where electricity is most needed, and the construction of transmission lines to move all that power has failed to keep up.

'They set up these huge wind farms and they don’t have connections to the grid,' says Antung Liu of Indiana University Bloomington. 'They just have this attitude that ‘We’ll build it, and hopefully we’ll be able to use it later.'

What’s more, grid operators have shown a bias toward coal production, so renewable power has sometimes gone unused even when the physical connections are there. Greenpeace estimates that 19 percent of Chinese wind power was wasted in the first three quarters of last year.

Leaders are now starting to reckon with those issues, installing new power lines and focusing on building smaller wind and solar farms in populated areas.”

“Anders Hove, a Beijing-based clean energy expert from the Paulson Institute, said that as recently as 2012 solar power was shunned as a potential source of energy for China’s domestic market because it was seen as too expensive.

No more. Costs have since plummeted and by 2020 China – which is now the world’s top clean energy investor – hopes to be producing 110GW of solar power and 210GW of wind power as part of an ambitious plan to slash pollution and emissions. By 2030, China has pledged to increase the amount of energy coming from non-fossil fuels to 20% of the total.

Earlier this month, meanwhile, China’s energy agency vowed to spend more than $360bn on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind by 2020, cutting smog levels, carbon emissions and creating 13m jobs in the process. “
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/19/china-builds-worlds-biggest-solar-farm-in-journey-to-become-green-superpower

Some of these articles are dated in 2017, so your students may want to research more recent articles to see more of what is happening.

Past blog posts include:

03/05/2014      Heat and Energy
06/05/2016      Air Pollution in China
01/13/2017      America's First Offshore Wind Farm
06/16/2017 Source of Energy Choices: An Article
10/26/2018      China Going Solar

You may have Midterm Examinations coming up, so for your reference:
01/04/2015     Midterm Examinations

*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 2019!

0 Comments

ocean power plant generates energy from Waves

12/21/2018

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.

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.

A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals… this is the lab book for you.
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what I was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

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 !

“World-wide demand for electricity is expected to double within the next 20 years; this, combined with commitments to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the same time-frame are increasing the search for clean, socially acceptable methods of generating power. Ocean waves are a large, relatively untapped renewable energy resource. According to London-based Carbon Trust, wave energy can realistically provide over 2,000 TWh/year of electricity–approximately 10% of global energy needs.

Ocean waves and tidal currents are one of the most important, clean, cheap, rich, and reliable sources of renewable energy on the earth. Ocean energy in Europe has attracted a good deal of attention since 1970’s (about 30 companies and research institutes). The instability in the oil price, environmental issues, and finiteness of resources has made the Unites States to seriously investigate on ocean wave energy companies. It is sought to be a very potential and active area of research in the next decades.

Although still in the early stages of development, ocean energy can and will provide enough power to supply a substantial part of the world energy demand. The wave energy industry is sometimes compared with the wind energy industry some 25 years ago when there was neither a unique design, nor a universal agreement on its future path. Wind industry has converged to a unique design over the past quarter of a century and now is a major player in the energy industry. Having learned from the evolution of wind power, wave energy is expected to come into play in a much shorter time period.”
https://taflab.berkeley.edu/ocean-wave-energy/

“The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has completed a recent analysis of the U.S. wave energy resource potential. EPRI estimates the total wave energy resource along the outer continental shelf at 2,640 TWh/yr. That is an enormous potential, considering that just 1 TWh/yr of energy will supply around 93,850 average U.S. homes with power annually. While an abundance of wave energy is available, it cannot be fully harnessed everywhere for a variety of reasons, such as other competing uses of the ocean (i.e. shipping, commercial fishing, naval operations) or environmental concerns in sensitive areas. Therefore, it is important to consider how much resource is recoverable in a given region. EPRI estimates that the total recoverable resource along the U.S. shelf edge is 1,170 TWh/yr, which is almost one third of the 4,000 TWh of electricity used in the United States each year.”
https://www.boem.gov/Ocean-Wave-Energy/
“The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provides a number of useful maps and tools regarding wave energy resources, including a wave energy resource atlas, available at https://www.nrel.gov/water/data-tools.html. “

“In 2001, more than 1000 different methods of utilization of wave energy had been patented by many different wave energy companies, most of which never even made it past the first few stages. Only a few of these projects have been shown to work in reality. The following are the three main methods that look most promising:

Oscillating Water Column (OWC)
An oscillating water column is partially lowered into water. It is open below the surface line with a hollow upper part filled with air. The water level within the water column increases and decreases with waves coming in resulting in compression and decompression of air. Wells-turbines are ideal for the purpose of converting this into energy, because the turbines rotate the same way independent of the direction of the airflow. A generator converts this mechanical energy into useful electricity.

Surface-following attenuator (Line Absorber)
The point absorber consists of a series of long unit, floating on the surface of the water following the movements of the wave. It is this movement that is harnessed and converted to electricity in the point absorber.
A Scottish company, Pelamis Wave Power (previously known as Ocean Power Delivery), has installed a successful 2.5 MW wave farm Aguçadoura of the coast of Portugal. This wave power plant was opened in September 2008. Below is a picture of one of the Pelamis Wave Energy Converters that is the foundation of Aguçadoura, maybe the most promising device to harness wave energy so far.
This device looks like a sea snake in the water. It consists of a series of joints that generate power as the waves move them up and down through hydraulic rams and a generator. An underwater cable moves the electricity to the shore.

Buoyancy Unit/Point Absorber
The buoyancy unit is floating on the waves or below the water surface, fixed to the bottom, following the vertical movements of the waves up and down. These waves drive a pump that generates electricity.

The power generation of a typical ocean wave energy unit is about 1 MW, but we expect this output to get better along with the wave energy technology.

After several years with low activity around marine energy technologies, the need for renewable energy has pushed the interest for these technologies forward. Some countries have invested more than others when it comes to developing these methods. Britain and Portugal are currently the leading nations when it comes to ocean wave energy conversion, but several other countries are starting to grasp the potential of harnessing wave energy as well.”
http://energyinformative.org/wave-energy/

“[In September 19, 2016], the Navy has established a test site in Hawaii, with hopes the technology can someday be used to produce clean, renewable power for offshore fueling stations for the fleet and provide electricity to coastal communities in fuel-starved places around the world. ...

Hawaii would seem a natural site for such technology. As any surfer can tell you, it is blessed with powerful waves. The island state also has the nation's highest electricity costs—largely because of its heavy reliance on oil delivered by sea—and has a legislative mandate to get 100 percent of its energy from renewables by 2045.”
https://phys.org/news/2016-09-wave-produced-electricity-online-hawaii.html

Here is one design called WaveStar from Denmark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZN5CthZhvg

Here is another design from Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyta74Mt9v4

And here is the Swansea Bay Project from the UK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AghbNySXp9o

“Advantage[s] of Wave Power [include]:

Clean and green
Because it uses only the energy of ocean waves, wave energy does not produce greenhouse gases or other pollutants like fossil fuels do.

Renewable and reliable
Waves are a material that cannot be used up like other conventional forms of energy such as oil, natural gas, and coal, and we won’t run out of waves any time soon. Waves will continue to hit coastlines worldwide, and therefore, they can serve as a reliable source of energy.

Worldwide potential
With an estimated worldwide electricity-generating potential of 2 terawatts (TW) from waves, there are many opportunities to develop this technology into one of many resources for our renewable energy future.

Efficient energy production
The energy density of waves along shorelines is approximately 30-40 kW/m of waves, and further out into the ocean, most waves can generate 100 kW/meter of electricity. Less than ½ mile2 of ocean has the potential to generate more than 30 MW of power, which is enough energy to power 20,000 British homes.

Can be built offshore
While wave energy devices can be built near shorelines, they can also be built offshore, which reduces shoreline conflicts of use such as recreation and fishing.

Low operation costs
Once they have been built, wave energy devices can be free to operate by themselves, unless the equipment malfunctions or damage occurs.

Minimum visual impact
Wave energy devices can be installed to be mostly or entirely submerged beneath the water. The devices can be installed far enough from shore to allow for minimal visual impact.

No fuel cost
Because wave energy uses no fuel, this dramatically lowers the cost of device operation.

No pollution or death
Unlike oil spills and pollution and death from fossil fuels like coal, there is virtually no pollution from the generation of electricity from waves.

Size advantage
Wave energy devices can be tailored to meet electricity demand, and therefore can be manufactured at different sizes that are appropriate for each location. In contrast, fossil fuels generally require large facilities in order to produce electricity.

Disadvantages of wave power [include:]

Current high cost of investmentBecause wave energy is still in the developmental stage, it is very costly to build wave devices. As the technology improves and the demand for renewable energy technologies increases, the costs of investment and construction of wave energy technology are expected to decrease.

Maintenance and weather effects
Equipment that is exposed to rugged oceanic conditions 24/7 can lead to damage to wave equipment and to corrosion from salty seawater, requiring maintenance. Oceanic storms such as hurricanes are particularly damaging to wave equipment.

Marine life impacts
Marine life may be harmed or displaced, or their habitats negatively impacted by the construction of wave energy devices.

Reduced sea usage
The physical presence of wave energy device “farms” could potentially reduce the size of shipping channels, as well as opportunities for recreation and fishing.

Few implemented
Thus far, only a few pilot wave energy projects have been constructed globally. Further research is necessary to determine the the lifespan of the equipment, the associated costs with running the devices, and the impacts of these machines on both human and marine life.

Noise
Constantly running wave energy devices can be much noisier than waves are naturally, and this could potentially be disruptive to both humans and sea life living near these devices.

Slow technology improvements
Wave energy has been developing since the 1700s, and yet it is still a nascent technology that needs to be more fully developed. This slow development is an impediment to investment in this type of renewable energy.

Difficult to transmit wave energy
It is currently very challenging to transport ocean wave-generated electricity long distances to where it will be consumed inland.

Visual impacts
For those people living near ocean shorelines, some types of wave energy devices can be unsightly and interfere with ocean views.”

https://greentumble.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-wave-power/

Next week is the beginning of Winter Break, so there will not be a blog post. The next post will be Friday, 1/4/19.

*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 holiday!

0 Comments

london killer smog in 1952

12/14/2018

0 Comments

The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.

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.

A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals… this is the lab book for you.
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what I was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

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 !

“On December 5, 1952, a zone of high atmospheric pressure parked itself over London, bringing still air and bitter cold to the British capital. A high layer of warm air worked like a lid, trapping thick yellowish black smog over the city for four days, killing at least 4,000 and perhaps as many as 12,000 people (it's difficult to measure the exact death toll from specific air pollution events, because many of the effects are long-term). The smog reduced the whole city to a hazy twilight visibility and even worked its way into people's homes.

The main ingredient in the noxious pea soup was burning coal. Four years later, Parliament passed the Clean Air Act of 1956. The law regulated the burning of coal in some areas of London and moved coal-burning power stations away from the city. Other legislation has followed since, but London remains one of the world's hardest cities to take a deep breath in. The Guardian reports that someone dies at least once an hour in London from health problems linked to breathing polluted air, like congestive heart failure and emphysema.

But the problem extends far beyond London. Most of the world's largest cities are shrouded in smog. How bad is it? In late 2015, the Chinese government temporarily closed factories and restricted driving in Beijing to clear the capital city's air in preparation for a massive military parade. Amazed residents spent a couple of days snapping photos of clear blue skies, but less than a day after the parade, dense smog settled back over the city as if it had never left.

Atmospheric scientists actually recognize an international smog season, when air pollution tends to spike around the world, and Smog Day, the anniversary of the Great Smog, unsurprisingly falls right in the midst of it. All that foul air is taking a major toll on public health. About 7 million people a year die from diseases linked to air pollution, according to the World Health Organization. That, in turn, has an economic impact in medical expenses and lost productivity.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kionasmith/2017/12/05/take-a-deep-breath-and-remember-the-great-smog-of-1952/#e62346b55e38

“The cold weather preceding and during the Great Smog led Londoners to burn more coal than usual to keep themselves warm. Post-war domestic coal tended to be of a relatively low-grade, sulphurous variety (similar to lignite coal), while conversely, better-quality ‘hard’ coals (such as anthracite coal) tended to be exported, which increased the amount of sulphur dioxide in the smoke. There were also numerous coal-fired power stations in the Greater London area, including Fulham, Battersea, Bankside, Greenwich and Kingston upon Thames, all of which added to the pollution. According to the UK's Met Office, the following pollutants were emitted each day during the smoggy period: 1,000 tonnes of smoke particles, 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid, 14 tonnes of fluorine compounds, and 370 tonnes of sulphur dioxide which may have been converted to 800 tonnes of sulphuric acid.

Research suggests that additional pollution-prevention systems fitted at Battersea may have worsened the air quality, reducing the output of soot at the cost of increased sulphur dioxide, though this is not certain. Additionally, there was pollution and smoke from vehicle exhaust—particularly from steam locomotives and diesel-fuelled buses, which had replaced the recently abandoned electric tram system – and from other industrial and commercial sources.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London

“The Great Smog of 1952 was much more than a nuisance. It was lethal, particularly for the elderly, young children and those with respiratory problems. Heavy smokers were especially vulnerable because of their already-impaired lungs, and smoking was common at the time, especially among men.
It wasn’t until undertakers began to run out of coffins and florists out of bouquets that the deadly impact of the Great Smog was realized. Deaths from bronchitis and pneumonia increased more than sevenfold. The death rate in London’s East End increased ninefold.

Initial reports estimated that about 4,000 died prematurely in the immediate aftermath of the smog.

The detrimental effects lingered, however, and death rates remained well above normal into the summer of 1953. Many experts now estimate the Great Smog claimed at least 8,000 lives, and perhaps as many as 12,000.

The effects of the Big Smoke weren’t limited to people: Birds lost in the fog crashed into buildings. Eleven prize heifers brought to Earls Court for the famed Smithfield Show choked to death, and breeders fashioned improvised gas masks for their cattle by soaking grain sacks in whiskey.”
https://www.history.com/news/the-killer-fog-that-blanketed-london-60-years-ago

“During a cold snap on Dec. 5 [in 1953]…, sulphur particles mixed with fumes from burning coal and made the yellow fog smell like rotten eggs. Some Londoners reported being unable to see their feet, and transportation was canceled with the exception of the London Underground. Birds flew into buildings, and robberies increased as thieves were able to make an easy getaway.

The smog eventually lifted on Dec. 9 [1953], after cold winds swept the fumes out to the North Sea.

The incident eventually led to the Clean Air Act of 1956, restricting the burning of coal in urban areas in the United Kingdom.

A team of scientists now believe they have solved the mystery of the exact cause and nature of the fog, through lab experiments and measuring the atmosphere in China, which is home to 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world.

Their work was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

'People have known that sulfate was a big contributor to the fog, and sulfuric acid particles were formed from sulfur dioxide released by coal burning for residential use and power plants, and other means,' lead author Renyi Zhang, a scientist at Texas A&M University, said in a statement.

'But how sulfur dioxide was turned into sulfuric acid was unclear. Our results showed that this process was facilitated by nitrogen dioxide, another co-product of coal burning, and occurred initially on natural fog.' ”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/12/13/scientists-say-theyve-solved-mystery-1952-london-killer-fog/95375738/

“The Great Smog of 1952 caused the United Kingdom to enact stricter laws about air pollution. Many cities around the world have tried to limit how much pollution is in the air. However, smog is still a problem in cities such as Mexico City, Beijing, and Los Angeles.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/dec4/great-smog-1952/

“In a move to improve the air quality and reduce airborne pollutants, most London homes switched to natural gas and other low-emission fuels. In 1956 the implementation of the Clean Air Act (revised in 1968) forced industrial, residential, and commercial sectors to improve upon the way they generated power, move away from coal as a domestic heating source, and use cleaner-burning fuels and more fuel-efficient vehicles. The Act, however, took several years to come into full effect, during which time London continued to suffer periods of dense smog. In December 1962, an additional 750 people died from yet another great smog.”
https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Smog-of-London

“The horrifying environmental disaster, caused by the combination of a high-pressure front and light winds that trapped fumes over the city, led the British government to phase out coal furnaces, and in the years since, the city has built 80 monitoring stations in an effort to be more vigilant about air quality.

Even so, the health effects of the Great Smog still persist, according to a newly published study in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

In the study, researchers from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the University of California, San Diego and University of Massachusetts studied how London's Great Smog affected early childhood health and the long-term health consequences.

The scientists found that children exposed to the Great Smog in their first year of life were nearly 20 percent more likely to develop childhood asthma than those who weren't, and nearly 10 percent more likely to have asthma as adults. “
https://www.seeker.com/londons-great-smog-of-1952-still-is-making-people-sick-1917178603.html

“ ‘[Texas A&M researcher Renyi Zhang stated],”People have known that sulfate was a big contributor to the [Great Fog], and sulfuric acid particles were formed from sulfur dioxide released by coal burning for residential use and power plants, and other means,’’ Zhang says.

‘But how sulfur dioxide was turned into sulfuric acid was unclear. Our results showed that this process was facilitated by nitrogen dioxide, another co-product of coal burning, and occurred initially on natural fog. Another key aspect in the conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfate is that it produces acidic particles, which subsequently inhibits this process. Natural fog contained larger particles of several tens of micrometers in size, and the acid formed was sufficiently diluted. Evaporation of those fog particles then left smaller acidic haze particles that covered the city.’

The study shows that similar chemistry occurs frequently in China, which has battled air pollution for decades. Of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, China is home to 16 of them, and Beijing often exceeds by many times the acceptable air standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
‘The difference in China is that the haze starts from much smaller nanoparticles, and the sulfate formation process is only possible with ammonia to neutralize the particles,’ Zhang adds.

‘In China, sulfur dioxide is mainly emitted by power plants, nitrogen dioxide is from power plants and automobiles, and ammonia comes from fertilizer use and automobiles. Again, the right chemical processes have to interplay for the deadly haze to occur in China. Interestingly, while the London fog was highly acidic, contemporary Chinese haze is basically neutral.’
Zhang says China has been working diligently over the past decade to lessen its air pollution problems, but persistent poor air quality often requires people to wear breathing masks during much of the day. China’s explosive industrial and manufacturing growth and urbanization over the past 25 years have contributed to the problem.

‘A better understanding of the air chemistry holds the key for development of effective regulatory actions in China,’ he adds.
‘The government has pledged to do all it can to reduce emissions going forward, but it will take time,’ he notes. ‘We think we have helped solve the 1952 London fog mystery and also have given China some ideas of how to improve its air quality. Reduction in emissions for nitrogen oxides and ammonia is likely effective in disrupting this sulfate formation process.’ “
https://today.tamu.edu/2016/11/14/researchers-solve-mystery-of-historic-1952-london-fog-and-current-chinese-haze/

Past blog posts related to Chinese Air Pollution include:
03/30/2018      China Vertical Forest Update
03/03/2017       China's Vertical Forests
06/05/2016       Air Pollution in China

*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.

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global climate change and health report

12/7/2018

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pacific garbage patch

11/30/2018

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.

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.

A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals… this is the lab book for you.
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what I was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

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 !

There have been several posts about Garbage in the Ocean, but they have been separate over the years. I would like to consolidate this issue as well as provide a list of past blog posts.

“The name ‘Pacific Garbage Patch’ has led many to believe that this area is a large and continuous patch of easily visible marine debris items such as bottles and other litter—akin to a literal island of trash that should be visible with satellite or aerial photographs. This is not the case. While higher concentrations of litter items can be found in this area, much of the debris is actually small pieces of floating plastic that are not immediately evident to the naked eye.

Ocean debris is continuously mixed by wind and wave action and widely dispersed both over huge surface areas and throughout the top portion of the water column. It is possible to sail through ‘garbage patch’ areas in the Pacific and see very little or no debris on the water's surface. It is also difficult to estimate the size of these ‘patches,’ because the borders and content constantly change with ocean currents and winds. Regardless of the exact size, mass, and location of the ‘garbage patch,’ manmade debris does not belong in our oceans and waterways and must be addressed.”
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/garbagepatch.html

“The name ‘Pacific Garbage Patch’ has led many to believe that this area is a large and continuous patch of easily visible marine debris items such as bottles and other litter —akin to a literal island of trash that should be visible with satellite or aerial photographs. While higher concentrations of litter items can be found in this area, along with other debris such as derelict fishing nets, much of the debris is actually small pieces of floating plastic that are not immediately evident to the naked eye.

The debris is continuously mixed by wind and wave action and widely dispersed both over huge surface areas and throughout the top portion of the water column. It is possible to sail through the ‘garbage patch’ area and see very little or no debris on the water’s surface. It is also difficult to estimate the size of these “patches,” because the borders and content constantly change with ocean currents and winds. Regardless of the exact size, mass, and location of the ‘garbage patch,’ manmade debris does not belong in our oceans and waterways and must be addressed. “
https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html

“The world produces enough plastic each year to build 50 Pyramids of Giza. That's over 350 million tons of candy wrappers, PVC pipes, and synthetic t-shirts. While most of it ends up in landfills, 8 million tons wind up in our oceans each year — where most finds its way into massive garbage patches around the world.

And the biggest of them all is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. If you picked up each piece of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch you'd carry away about 1.8 trillion individual pieces. That's ten times more than there are stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. And it would weigh a whopping 80,000 tons. Equivalent to the weight of three Statues of Liberty.

Half of the entire patch is made of plastic fishing nets, lines, and ropes, which come from intense fishing activity near the area. The other half is mostly hard plastics and films, like water bottles and plastic wrap. But don't let the name ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ fool you. It doesn't look like a giant mountain of trash at all. It's actually scattered over a region of ocean that's twice the size of Texas, according to some estimates.

So if you wanted to pick up every piece of plastic, it would take you 121 days at a walking pace of 5 km/hr to cover the entire area. Though in reality, there's no true end since the garbage patch is constantly ebbing and flowing with the ocean currents. But let's pretend you could scoop it all up into one place. There'd be enough plastic to fill 100 Boeing 747 planes!
And the patch is only getting bigger. It's been growing exponentially larger for nearly 70 years. Partly because once the plastic is there it'll stick around for centuries. Those plastic fishing lines, for example, will take 600 years to break down.

And even after they break down, the damage doesn't stop there. Most end up as microplastics that are too small to see with the naked eye. But can make it into the bellies of sea animals and ultimately the humans that eat those animals. Worldwide, researchers have found ingested microplastics in, every species of sea turtle. Nearly 60% of whale species. And almost 60% of seabirds.

Plus, more plastic is pouring into the world's oceans each day. In fact, experts estimate that by the year 2050 the amount of plastic in the oceans will outweigh all the world's fish. “
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-big-is-great-pacific-garbage-patch-2018-10

“Plastic has increasingly become a ubiquitous substance in the ocean. Due to its size and color, animals confuse the plastic for food, causing malnutrition; it poses entanglement risks and threatens their overall behavior, health and existence.

Studies have shown that about 700 species have encountered marine debris, and 92% of these interactions are with plastic. 17% of the species affected by plastic are on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species.

Floating at the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is 180x more plastic than marine life. Animals migrating through or inhabiting this area are then likely consuming plastic in the patch. For example, sea turtles by-caught in fisheries operating within and around the patch can have up to 74% (by dry weight) of their diets composed of ocean plastics. Laysan albatross chicks from Kure Atoll and Oahu Island have around 45% of their wet mass composed of plastics from surface waters of the GPGP.

Since 84% of this plastic was found to have at least one Persistent Bio-accumulative Toxic Persistent Bio-accumulative Toxic (PBT) chemical, animals consuming this debris are therefore ingesting the chemicals attached to the plastic.

Fishing nets account for 46% of the mass in the GPGP and they can be dangerous for animals who swim or collide into them and cannot extract themselves from the net. Interaction with these discarded nets, also known as ghost nets, often results in the death of the marine life involved.”
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

“First discovered in the early 1990s, the garbage patch's trash comes from countries around the Pacific Rim, including nations in Asia and North and South America, said Laurent Lebreton of the Ocean Cleanup Foundation.

But specifically, scientists say, the bulk of the garbage patch trash comes from China and other Asian countries.
This shouldn't be a surprise: Overall, worldwide, most of the plastic trash in the ocean comes from Asia. In fact, the top six countries for ocean garbage are China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Thailand, according to a 2015 study in the journal Science.

The United States contributes as much as 242 million pounds of plastic trash to the ocean every year, according to that study.

China has begun to take steps to stem the tide of trash floating from its shores. The country recently banned the import of most plastic waste, according to a study published in June in Science Advances.

China has imported about 45 percent of the world’s plastic waste since 1992 for recycling, the study found. In the U.S. alone, nearly 4,000 shipping containers full of plastic recyclables a day had been shipped to Chinese recycling plants.   “
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/09/07/great-pacific-garbage-patch-where-did-all-trash-come/1133838002/

“The patch was discovered in 1997 by Charles Moore, a yachtsman who had sailed through a mishmash of floating plastic bottles and other debris on his way home to Los Angeles. It was named by Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle oceanographer known for his expertise in tracking ocean currents and the movement of cargo lost overboard, including rubber duck bath toys and Nike tennis shoes. The patch is now the target of a $32 million cleanup campaign launched by a Dutch teenager, Boyan Slat, now 23, and head of the Ocean Cleanup, the organization he founded to do the job.”
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/great-pacific-garbage-patch-plastics-environment/

“While ‘garbage patch’ might make you think of something you pass by on the side of the road, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Ocean is less like a patch and more like a massive swirling vortex more than three times the size of Spain and more than twice the size of Turkey or Texas.
And it's growing and collecting more plastic rapidly, according to a study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports by researchers associated with the Ocean Cleanup Foundation.

There may be more than 16 times as much plastic in the vortex than previous studies have estimated, according to the researchers behind the study.

An aerial view of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch might at first appear to be open water. But inside there's debris from all over the world — debris that traps or is eaten by marine animals, filling up their bodies to the point of being fatal and tainting our food supply.

More than 320 million metric tons of plastic are produced every year — and a disturbing amount ends up in the ocean, with much of it accumulating in places like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “
https://www.businessinsider.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch-view-study-plastic-2018-3

“On Sept. 8, [2018], an ungainly, 2,000-foot-long contraption will steam under the Golden Gate Bridge in what’s either a brilliant quest or a fool's errand.

Dubbed the Ocean Cleanup Project, this giant sea sieve consists of pipes that float at the surface of the water with netting below, corralling trash in the center of a U-shaped design.

The purpose of this bizarre gizmo is as laudable as it is head-scratching: to collect millions of tons of garbage from what's known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which can harm and even kill whales, dolphins, seals, fish and turtles that consume it or become entangled in it, according to researchers at Britain's University of Plymouth.

The project is the expensive, untried brainchild of a 23-year-old Dutch college dropout named Boyan Slat, who was so disgusted by the plastic waste he encountered diving off Greece as a teen that he has devoted his life to cleaning up the mess.

Along with detractors who want to prioritize halting the flow of plastics into the ocean, the Dutch nonprofit gathered support from several foundations and philanthropists, including billionaire Salesforce founder Marc Benioff. In 2017, the Ocean Cleanup Project received $5.9 million in donations and reported reserves from donations in previous years of $17 million. “
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-giant-floating-trash-collector-will-try-to-scoop-up-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch/ar-BBLBjh7?li=BBnb7Kz

Check these past blog posts about this Ocean Cleanup issue:
06/25/2015      Ocean Clean-Up
03/19/2016      Microplastic Polluting Our Oceans
02/17/2017      The Ocean Clean-up Project Revisited
12/08/2017    Video: Oceans -- The Mystery of
                                        the Missing Plastic
10/19/2018    The Ocean Cleanup Launch
11/09/2018     Plastic Pollution Coalition

*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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