Tuesday December 9

Howdy folks! Happy Tuesday (or happy whenever you are reading this)....

I am having a hard time deciding how much (or little) background material that I want you to know about electrical generation before we start working on how specific resources are used to generate electricity. So I will make a list here for us to work from.

1. Electricity is defined as the flow (or movement) of electrons. 
1. You all know this and so what, but it is really important.
2. The movement of electrons (electricity remember?) can be characterized in three ways:
1. Current (amperes or amps)
2. Energy (voltage)
3. Resistance (ohm's)
3. Of the 11 resources that I introduced last week (see list below) all of the resources (EXCEPT solar and hydrogen) generate electricity in the same way, namely by spinning a turbine.
1. Wind
2. Solar
3. Hydro
4. Tidal
5. Geothermal
6. Biomass
7. Hydrogen
8. Coal
9. Petroleum
10. Natural Gas
11. Nuclear
4. Okay, that being said, if 9 out of 11 require the spinning of a turbine, we should start with what a turbine is right? Of course it's right, I'm the teacher! 
1. Here is a link that explains shows a turbine spinning. I know that it looks like a water wheel, this is of course because it is a water wheel!
1. To reiterate, all of the resources listed above (EXCEPT solar and hydrogen) require a spinning wheel.
2. Some of these resources use water to spin the wheel...
1. hydro
2. tidal
3. Some use wind
1. wind (duh)
4. But most use super heated and pressurized water (steam)
1. coal (mostly)
2. natural gas
3. petroleum (rarely...too precious as a transportation fuel)
4. biomass
5. nuclear (mostly uranium)
6. geothermal
5. Big deal right? We have had water wheels and windmills for 1,000's of years. So what is different about the water wheels and windmills today? (Tilting at windmills for my literary APES?)
1. The whole goal of evaluating all of these resources is really about one thing: "How can we make a wheel spin?"
2. It is what they are connected to!
3. The wheel is connected to a generator.
1. A generator is composed of coiled conductive metal wire (usually copper) that rotate inside of a magnetic field.
2. The movement of the copper within the field induces the electrons in the copper to move....ELECTRICITY!
4. Why Copper?
1. Go back to your chemistry days and riddle me this....where are the valence electrons in copper?
5. Why magnets?
1. What do you know about magnets?
1. You should have come up with a North/South or positive/negative thing.
2. What does this have to do with electricity?
1. What is the charge of an electron?
2. Why does the magnetic field not cause a reaction in (of) protons?
6. Now we have the electromagnet! This is still just a generator and it turns out that the design of a generator is the same as the design of an electric motor. The difference between the two? The direction of the energy input!
7. WOW! That was a lot of information for the first five minutes of class... 
8. Now we can get to the spinning part!
6. First up?  Wind Power. I know that you all think that there is nothing wrong with wind, but we need to look at all sides of the issues.
1. Take a look at a little known (and poorly researched) danger of using wind turbines.
7. The key to understanding wind turbines is the idea of the gear ratio...
1. How did you do? 
2. How did your construction of the gears of a clock relate to the workings of a wind turbine?
3. Seriously though, explain how you calculated the gear ratio for the second hand:minute and the minute hand to the hour hand. This is Warm-Up/Write-Up #12! Better pay attention APES!
1. Part II of the question is to explain why this is relevant to our conversation about the use of windmills and electrical generation.
8. Is all of this enough for a Tuesday? Are you Super Happy It's Tuesday? I know that I am.