To
top of this blog, I'm going to write about energy, our last project
and some of my experiences of this subject.
-
Ways to produce electricity:
There
are many ways to produce electricity:
-
Renewable:
1.
Eolic
2.
Tidal
3.
Geothermal
4.
Solar
5.
Biomass and biofuel
-
Non-renewable:
1.
Fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas)
2.
Atomic
Renewable
powers:
Eolic:
Eolic
power is the use of wind through wind
turbines to mechanically power generators. It uses
wind mills. These wind mills have a turbine that rotates when the
wind passes through them which then power a generator.
Tidal:
This
energy is produced by letting the tide's currents pass
through
turbines which then power a generator.
Geothermal:
This
energy is produced letting water get heated by the geothermal heat
that is under the ground, this water then makes a turbine rotate
which later on powers a generator.
Solar:
This
energy is produced using photovoltaic panels which absorb energy from
the sun's photons. There are 2 types of solar energy: With photons or
with heat.
Biomass
and biofuel:
This
energy is produced by burning down biofuels or other renewable
materials. This heat then heats the water up which later on makes a
turbine rotate which finally powers a generator.
Non-renewable:
Fossil
fuels:
This
energy is produced by burning down fossil fuels such as petrol, gas,
oil, coal etc. There only exist a certain amount of fossil fuels on
the world, so they'll eventually run out.
Atomic:
This
energy is produced by making water heat by breaking uranium
molecules. These then release a lot of energy and this is used to
heat the water. The water then rotates a turbine which then powers a
generator. This energy is very bad because it produces a lot of toxic
gases, the system they use to refrigerate the water is bad for the
fish, and it's very dangerous. Also once you've decided to make an
atomic station, if you later want to shut it down you'll have to wait
literately hundreds of
thousands of years, so it's an irreversible mistake.
-
How can I save energy?
To
save energy you can:
-Turn
of the lights whenever you don't need them
-Try
shutting of all the extra electrical devices that you don't need
-
Don't abuse warm water
-Try
to install solar panels to have an own renewable electric source
-Instead
of using the oven or the hob, use a microwave which consumes way less
electricity.
-Use
low-consumption bulbs
-Use
the dishwasher and the washing machine in “eco” mode and only use
it when it's full.
-Try
not to let electric devices in “standby”. Just shut them down if
you don't need them
-Use
a solar oven or cooker.
-Instead
of using the air conditioner, open the windows or go to the beach.
-Instead
of using electrical heating, make fire.
-Time
your long-time use devices such as your fridge, electric water heater
etc. Use a timer.
-
Solar oven
Our
last project of the year was to do a solar oven. It consisted of
heating a material inside of it only using the sun's rays. Our solar
oven reached over 90ªC !!-
My opinion about technology:
I
really enjoyed being part of the technology class this year. We made
lots of nice and interesting things and I learned a lot. What I liked
most was the activity about programming in the UIB. We had lot's of
fun and I learned a lot of new things. What I less liked was doing
all the blogger posts. It was quite weird publishing posts on a
public page just for my teacher. I didn't find it motivating but I
did it anyways as best as I could. What I'd improve for next year
would be the time we get to make a project. The quality of the
projects would increase and the motivation too. Which is my favourite
software/program used this year? Well definitely not scratch. It
contained a lot of bugs and is to simplified, I prefer using either
more raw programs such as Java or more simplified but efficient ones such as Ruby.
