Efficiency and Renewable Energy Back to PHYS 310 Main Website
Monday’s Class :
Before Class
- Please see Lighting Efficiency and Slides
- Could it be that our electricity use is decreasing???
- If you like this class and especially the global development facet, please consider taking a project-based class, PSC-391, Appropriate Technology for the World’s People, Development. You can find the course description on the department website.
- Rather than drying your clothes with heat, why not just blast the water out of them with sound waves? Come to class prepared to tell me why ultrasonic drying are 4 times as efficient as conventional driers.
- Read in DH’s Book: 466-484 on efficiency and heat pumps.
- See video: Heat Pump Efficiency and slides
- Note: Heat pumps don’t pump hot air from cold to hot, they move thermal energy to a hotter place. Can you explain the difference?
- See this professional video about setting up an OTEC facility in Hawaii by Makai
- See this 2 minute summary where I discuss OTEC from Wikipedia.
- Please review in DH’s Book: 441 – 443 about OTEC
During Class
After Class
Wednesday’s Class
Before Class
- Please read Jevon’s Paradox
- Please read Helicopter Date , Yes, you may ask yourself “why did we read this?”… “what does it have to do with the previous article?” See if you can come up with a good answer.
- California is considering outlawing gasoline garden equipment. Please read the article on NPR. Note the last two sentences: They bring up environmental justice, and finances.
- Please see Cool Roofs and Paradox. Slides: see the very end of efficiency slides
- Read in DH’s Book: 314-316 on urban heat island effect.
- The ultimate cool roofs material has just been invented. Please see from Feb. 27, Physics Today a surface coating that emits more heat than it absorbs even under strong sunlight. Is that possible?
- Please see Wind Power and slides
- Read in DH’s Book: 443 – 446 on wind power
- If you like, read about a transition from rancher to wind farm technician.
- When I was at Berkeley 2006 – 2007, we looked at Tethered Wind Energy Systems – could you fly a turbine at the end of a long kite string higher so that it received more consistently strong wind…. even up into the Jet Stream? It seems that people are working on this on a smaller scale now. Here’s an interesting short video if you’re interested.
- I should have pointed out in class Monday (so I’m doing it here), that we have a way to calculate the cost of generated electricity and see how this cost depends on the capital costs, and O&M, etc. When we put in the presently accepted values and duty cycle, we saw that the cost of producing NGCC was about what the IER (Institute for Energy Research) predicted – pretty cool, no?
- There’s a colloquium Thursday 11:00 AM in 180-262 on careers for physics graduates. The announcement was responded to by David Hafemeister (who wrote our textbook) with the following:“By now some 200 or more PhD physicists entered the world of science policy, the quantification (and other) skills they brought to DC, was badly needed, and they got alot done, a reasonable career path can be obtained by combining physics and public policy, or energy policy or international security and arms control.”
After Class
- Please finish your empathy intervention statement.
Friday :
Before Class
- Prepare for midterm. In looking for reasonable questions about LCOE, CCE, and CAC, I needed to look no further than PS#6 – questions #1, and question #4. Question #2 was using the Excel model, which is great and you should spend some time with this. There is no question #2. I’ve posted solutions to these problems on the main class website. I’ve also posted solutions to DH’s problems, though this material will be less rigorously examined on the midterm.
- Read in DH’s Book: 316-324 on policy options for climate change
During Class
- Midterm
After Class