DeAnza College/CIS2/Green technologies/

CIS 2 Computers and the Internet in Society SPRING 2009 Final Projects

For project communication, draft document sharing, revision, final submission preparation and publication, we will be using space in the public WikiEducator wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_technology - please read!

Green technologies
Green technology refers to the term clean energy. By adopting green technology, scientists believe that it can greatly reduce the greenhouse gases and pollution in our environment. Green technology is also refers to the solutions of alternative substitution of traditional resources like petroleum and natural gases. Also to qualify as a green technology, the energy source itself has to be social, economical and environmental friendly. The energy must be social friendly for the users. That means it has to be easily reached and easily used. To become economical friendly, the energy has to be cheap and can be largely produced or found. Environmental friendly is that the technology sources should produce a low level of pollution and remain its efficiency.

Renewable Heat Energy
Renewable heat is a term that refers thermodynamic and geothermal energy. Geothermal energy is basically an energy that we do not have to produce because it is already in side our earth. The reason that geothermal energy is consider as renewable and heat energy is that it is originated from the steam, water and even lava from the center of our earth. Geothermal energy is also one of the oldest energy sources on human history. Back to ancient time, the Roman has use this kind of energy to heat up water and spaces. Geothermal energy can be used in ancient time is due to their great stability and high efficiency. In today's technology, geothermal energy is associating with many different kinds of green technologies, like hydro-power energy and solar energy.

In the Next 3-5 Years
Heat renewable energy is using in varies ways in our daily life today. The most common ways that we can use this energy is from the electricity power plant. There are 3 types of electricity power plants are using geothermic energy to generate electricity, they are Dry Steam Plants, Flash Steam Plants and Binary Cycle. In the future, we will be expected to see this technology will apply on our water pies and our home heating system as well. Because the heat energy is coming from the earth underneath, so scientists planed to build our water pipe close to those energy spot, it can efficiently reduce the electricity consuming from heating up the water, instead the water will be heated up by the geothermal heat energy automatically.

Impact & Effect
Geothermal energy is an energy that under the earth, and it is a very stable and efficient energy source to reach; therefore, we can just simply plug the energy storage machine/ water pipes close to the energy site to recharge the machine. On the other hand, Geothermal energy could be harmful to our environment if the green house gases like CO2 has break out from the earth during the drilling process. However, unlike other energy resources, geothermal energy can product much larger energy then we could produce in a electricity power station, so it can be a replacement technology to produce electricity in the future. In contrast, geothermal energy maybe restricted by its geographical reason, because heating spots are located in different locations all over the world and it is not easy to find a perfect location for the spot, therefore it is very hard to find a perfect spot as an energy spot. In addition, the cost of investing on a geothermal site will be relatively high when compare to a regular nuclear or coal electricity power station.

Development Role
The U.S government is now putting their resources into some of the green technologies, such as geothermal enhance system, hydrothermal system and geothermal heat pump systems. They provide funding to encourage companies to use these technology and also scientists to research about them.

Hydropower
Hydropower is a technology that uses momentum of water to generate energy. One example of this energy source is the Hoover Dam at the Colorado river between California and Arizona. The major product of hydropower generator is electricity. Hydro power is one of the major energy resources; it contributes around 19% of total electricity in the world. Similar with renewable heat energy, hydropower is another technique that has been used by the ancient Indian, Roman and Chinese. Agricultural is the one category of work that this technique had applied on in the ancient time. The ancient citizens used this theory to build waterwheels and mills to watering their farmland. Today, Hydropower is also included Hydraulic power pipes, the technique that used pipes to transform water power other power source by its pressure.

In the Next 3-5 Years
Hydropower has well practicing by Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, France, Japan and Norway. There countries agree to apply this technology into their public. Most of these countries have engaged into an agreement with an organization called IEA, and the organization has developed some plans for these countries to follow. In the past few years, most of these countries have developed some small scale hydropower system for the small industries within the country to reduce their production cost. In the future, this plan will be turned into another phrase and the government will develop a larger scale hydropower generator to try to provide enough power to a whole industrial area. Eventually, hydropower will be combined with wind power in the future to increase its efficiency.

Impact & Effect
This is definitely a positive technology to our society and there are 5 reasons that show it should be good to us.  1) It is a very efficient technology that we only need a very small amount of water to generate energy that can be transferred to a mile away from the generator.

2) It is a very reliable energy source, as long as the water is moving to the generator, it can produce unlimited energy to our society.

3) Some of small scale hydropower technology do not even need a reservoir to generate energy. This will prevent a lot of construction and avoid to damage our ecosystem.

4) According to the data, hydro power is a cost effective energy, it only takes few thousand dollars to build a hydropower generator but the power it produced can support an small industry.

5) This technology is either good for the developing and developed countries. Developing countries can save their resources from building expensive and non effective power plant. The developed countries can use this technology to help their citizen to lower the energy cost.  Moreover, comparing with geothermal heat energy, hydropower resource is more clean and reliable. Although hydropower might not as efficient as geothermal energy, however it costs less to build a generator and it provides a cost effective basis for the users, which gains more popularity to the public. The hydropower will eventually change our habit of reliance. In the future, we will be less relied on nuclear electricity plants and coal electricity plants but more favorable on this clean energy.

Development Role
As mentioned before, an organization called IEA has work into this field and tries to push the governments to use hydropower as their alternative energy source. 7 countries have also participated in a hydropower plans call Annex which is supervised by IEA.

Wind Power
Wind power is when the energy of the wind is used for a form of energy using wind turbines. Wind turbines are large fans that distribute the energy. Across the world wind power is used for about 1.5% for electricity and countries like Spain, Denmark, Portugal, and Germany are using more and more wind power throughout their countries. Wind power consist of wind farms that use electricity from local providers. Wind power is very useful because it's clean, commonly used, renewable, and don't put out harmful gases. Wind power is not an on demand power use because it only works and gets full use when the wind is blowing.

In the next 3-5 years
Wind power over the last few years has grown in the U.S.A and other countries its heavily used in a small percentage but nevertheless its still growing and looks to grow over the years. Even though we are in a recession Wind power is still projected to grow and be used more world wide. There are two forms of wind power, land wind farms and off shore wind farms. Land wind farms have large wind fans and small wind fans. Over the next few years these will be the wind power technologies used world wide. The small scale wind power will be less common due to it being uncommon but it will still get its fair share of distribution.According to a BTM its projected to grow over the next few years a considerable amount. Other than that Wind power has the same technologies they have been using and the other variables they have to worry about is pricing on land, products, and electricity. Also more wind power companies will mean more job openings across the USA and manufacturing jobs will increase if wind power use expands world wide.

Impact & Effects
After doing research on wind power and looking at awea.org Technology will only help the growth of wind power over the years if they can rebuild and get new transmission lines. The towers are made of still and the wings that spin are usually made of fiberglass or reinforced polyester so there's no technology issues there. It really doesn't say what the transmissions lines are are made of but I'm guessing its steal copper and wires and I don't see how technology will hold that back in wind power advancing.

How will this affect us?
Wind power has no real affects on the environment except for the worry of flying animals such as birds and bats and also the appearance they have to the land that they're on. They have no pollution put out the places the products are made that make up wind power are safe. All wind power can due is help the environment and not hurt it it has to be accepted in what ever town, city, country, or state if they choose to use wind power and have the wind turbines on display. We all can benefit from wind power and it has way more reward than risks if people learn to choose to accept and use wind power technology.

Development Role
There are many organizations and companies that are pushing for wind power to develop throughout America and the world. Organizations like American Wind Energy Association, Siemens USA, whywind.org, capewind.org, and many other companies that make or manufacture wind power parts.

Rechargeable Energy Storage System
A rechargeable energy storage system is a system that store and deliver rechargeable powers. It is a system which the Maryland Researchers are developing, so that instead of wasting more energy or electricity for things, people may just recharge the batteries naturally and will not waste anymore limited-resources. Moreover, it is a source of energy you have in possession that can be used when it is needed or required to reduce excessive amounts of energy that can be done for things that need it. Flywheel energy storage is one of the most common-use energy storage devices. Flywheel energy storage is one of the energy storage devices; it is a rechargeable battery which store energy in the rotor by rotating the rotor while as chemical stores energy electrically.

In the Next 3-5 Years
The use of Rechargeable Energy Storage System will be considerable and appreciable in the future due to the fact that the main source of energy (gas) that the vehicles are now running on is limited. For example, the automakers Toyota and Honda started selling their hybrid cars while ago and the development that they are making is very impressive. As a result, the use of Rechargeable Energy Storage System will become very common in the future. Also, in the next 3-5 years, the Rechargeable Energy Storage System would be mainly used for hybrid vehicles and as a result, the cars-buyers would be impressed by the fact of not having to deal with the crazily increasing price of gas but recharging the battery at the gas stations with a lower price or using the solar panels, instead it will have an amount of stored energy that can be accessed when needed or just in case.

Impact & Effect
The impact of rechargeable energy would be positive because many people will be beneficial by this new-developing technology. Because of this system, people do not have to use as much as money on gas or waste as many energy as they have done in the past. The entire have to do is recharging the batteries of the hybrid cars or sometimes the cars will be recharging by itself from rotating the wheel. Overall you reduce a lot of time and a load of money for gas. In addition, the gas sellers would be only damaged by this system economically.

Development Role
Maryland Researchers are the ones driving the use of this kind of technology; their specific name is "Maryland Nanotech". Moreover, the development of the Rechargeable Energy Storage System will be also running by the automakers as well because of the increasing demands of hybrid cars.

Recycling Garabage
Recycling is the term used to describe an different form of disposing of used materials. Instead of thrwoing trashes onto landfills, it is a way of making new items. By recycling wasted materials, it is possible to reduce the amount of garbages going to landfills and it also keeps the cost of items which are made from recycled waste to stay low.

In The Next 3-5 Years
The technology for recycling garbage will be improved and people will have more knowledge of recycling. Many countries have different ideas and plans to recycle garbages. In the Berkeley, California, they started the recycling propose called, "curbside recycle," which is origin of our recycling system. There will be more efficient way to recycle garbages by originating technology we have now.

Impact & Effect
This is the really positive technology for our future to keep our planet clean. And people are taking actions to reduce waste items going to lanfills. In Japan, people are working on effort called "3R" which stand for "Reduce," "Reuse," and "Recycle" This action was proposed to suppress the resource collection as much as possible, to use those without uselessness, to suppress the waste to the minimum.

1) Reduce is most important part in 3R. We can review our attitude in our living in life, such as, "Don't put out garbage," "don't buy things you don't need," and "buy something that can be used for long period." Energy is needed in the procecc to recyle, and to reuse it, and some resources will be used. However, unless there are no garbages itself, we don't need energy. The reducing the garbage is the most effective approach to decrease garbage. The approach of reduce can be started from our familiar point.

2) Reuse is the second way to decrease waste. Even thoug people try to reduce the waste, there will be something unnecessary withou fail. That is the time to Reuse. One of the way to Reuse is the flea market. People are selling things they don't need to not make waste.

3) Recycle is the last way to reduce wastes. By creating items from wasted materials, there will be less wastes going to landfills. And there are several types of recycling which are "material recycle," using waste items as raw materials, "chemical recyle," breaking wastes by scientifically, and "thermal recyle," incinerating, which is last way to recyle the wastes which are not able to recyle.

Development Role
As mentionne before, every country has different way to approach better garbage recycle. Our technology is improving day by day, and there will be better recycling system in th future.

Social Issues
The demand and importance of Green Technologies has been increased due to the demand of using energy more efficiently as peoples are getting more concerned about the resource or environmental problems. As a result, people and scientists are trying to develop more effective way to deal with these problems, which lead invited different more types of Green Technologies for people to use.

Environmental Issues
Green technologies is changing our environment in varies ways. Because Green technologies are environmental friendly, they will release less pollution to the environment. Furthermore, these technologies help to reduce pollution in our environment and eventually, it reduces greenhouse gases in our environment and lowers the temperature and the risk of global warming.

Impacts of Green Technologies
The importance of Green Technologies has been increased due to the demand of using energy more efficiently as peoples are getting more concerned about the resource or environmental problems. Therefore, the impact of green technology will be dramatically huge and it will bring positive effect to our society. It will reduce the risk of having global warming and pollution we have in our environment.

Green Technologies in the Future
The U.S government is now putting their resources into some of the green technologies, such as geothermal enhance system, hydrothermal system and geothermal heat pump systems. They provide funding to encourage companies to use these technology and also scientists to research about them.

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