Energy & Place
Essential Questions:
- How does energy production impact place?
- How does your sense of place, environmental ethic, and understanding of our energy needs influence your perception of man's use of earth's resources and your own lifestyle choices?
Joint Scientific Statement: HERE
Debate Opening and Closing Statements
Opening: In our lifetime, the effects from climate change will drastically affect our planet, and as a nation we are not currently on a path to make any changes to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Nuclear power as a technology has been largely underrated due to events such as Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, and Fukushima, but it remains our only realistic option to power our nation without releasing any greenhouse gasses. I would like to argue during this debate that nuclear power is better than fossil fuels, natural gas, and renewables when it comes to pollution, cost, and reliability, and that the technology and potential for nuclear power in our country has been largely misunderstood. Nuclear power is able to run at 90% capacity, creates no pollution that contributes to climate change, and with enough uranium to fill our energy needs for thousands of years; it is clearly our best, and safest energy source for the planet. Although nuclear fission reactors do have the downside of producing radioactive substances which must be stored in conditions that cannot be harmful to life, most of it can be reused for energy, and from every one death caused by nuclear power, 4000 deaths are caused by coal power development, so nuclear power has a very safe history compared to our other current fuel options. We must make these steps forward to keep our planet in a condition that is habitable for ourselves, future generations, and other life here on earth.
Closing: During this debate our need for nuclear power was challenged by pointing out that nuclear power creates extremely toxic waste products, requires controversial mines and mills to extract fuel, and has the risk of a meltdown. While all of these things are true, I hope you now know that these fears are greatly exaggerated. By switching from our current fossil fuel powered nation to nuclear power would be beneficial to the environment by not creating any greenhouse gasses and reducing our need for other known harmful fuel extraction methods such as fracking and coal mining. Nuclear power is also directly beneficial to the everyday energy consumer with a cost of $0.024 per kw/h, which is lower than the cost of coal, natural gas, and renewables. Think of the kind of future you want to have and that future generations should have. I strongly suggest supporting nuclear power and other more sustainable energy options when possible. Thank You.
Closing: During this debate our need for nuclear power was challenged by pointing out that nuclear power creates extremely toxic waste products, requires controversial mines and mills to extract fuel, and has the risk of a meltdown. While all of these things are true, I hope you now know that these fears are greatly exaggerated. By switching from our current fossil fuel powered nation to nuclear power would be beneficial to the environment by not creating any greenhouse gasses and reducing our need for other known harmful fuel extraction methods such as fracking and coal mining. Nuclear power is also directly beneficial to the everyday energy consumer with a cost of $0.024 per kw/h, which is lower than the cost of coal, natural gas, and renewables. Think of the kind of future you want to have and that future generations should have. I strongly suggest supporting nuclear power and other more sustainable energy options when possible. Thank You.
Project Reflection
The motion we debated on was nuclear power and I was arguing on the side in support of nuclear power. My initial position on the issue was for nuclear power and it remained unchanged by the end of the debate. My position on these energy issues mostly remained unchanged throughout this project, but I did become less opposed to natural gas after learning about how safe it actually is compared to coal and oil. The strongest arguments for my side of the motion were all of the statistics around the safety of nuclear reactors and how efficient they are. The strongest evidence against my motion was just the risk of a meltdown, and the production of waste but they weren’t super strong in the debate. A question that I would like to research further is how many years will we have oil left and how long will we have uranium, because I heard it mentioned somewhere that we have enough uranium for thousands of years of power but in the debate my opponents said we wouldn’t last a century so I would like to see their source. Arguing for the side of the debate that I was in favor for made me more motivated to win because I actually care about being right and if I was arguing for the other side I would not care about winning as much because I would lying about what I believe. The side I argued for goes hand in hand with my environmental ethic of sustainability so it made my opinions stronger. I unfortunately cannot see myself in the debate video but I know I would have liked to talk more and answer some different questions. I didn’t talk nearly enough but nobody really did in the time that we had and everything my team said was factual.
Link to Humanities Page: http://mriveradp.weebly.com/humanities1.html
Materials Business Letter
December 11, 2013
Smith Optics, Inc.
280 Northwood Way
Box 2999
Ketchum, Idaho, 83340
Dear Smith Optics:
My name is Miles, and I am currently a junior at Animas High School in Durango Colorado. We are currently doing a project where our task is to hypothetically improve a consumer product that plays an important role in our lives. I have been an active snowboarder for 9 years and I enjoy your products. I own a pair of I/O’s and use them every weekend at the mountain and I love them. I think they’re the most comfortable and clearest snow goggles that I have owned. Although, I do believe that this great product could be improved more by including synthetic melanin in the lens. There are currently few optics companies that are creating melanin lenses for glasses but I have not found any snow goggles that include melanin in their lenses. Melanin is natural pigment found throughout the human body. Its purpose is to protect us against sunlight damage by filtering Ultraviolet (UV) and High Energy Visible (HEV) light, also known as Violet-Blue light. It provides one of the best natural defenses against the harmful effects of the sun.
Including synthetic melanin in your snow goggles lenses would have many benefits. Most lenses will filter out UV light and reduce a certain amount of visible light entering the eye. However, when synthetic melanin is infused into the lens it will provide better eye protection by filtering out up to 98% of the HEV light. It is the equivalent to a sun lotion with a SPF of 140. It reduces long-term exposure to the retina and could make up for the loss of retinal melanin that occurs with increasing age. This will help to reduce the damage that contributes to age related macular degeneration and cataracts, which could be a benefit for many older athletes. Another additional benefit is clearer vision. This is because of the high energy associated with blue light, which is scattered more than other wavelengths because it attaches to moisture in the air which results in haze. By filtering most of HEV light, melanin lenses eliminate the haze effect, allowing for better contrast, true color and sharper images.
I appreciate your consideration of my idea and welcome your feedback on this suggestion. Please feel free to contact me either at the address provided in the letterhead or by email at [email protected] .
Sincerely,
Miles Rivera
Student, Animas High School
Smith Optics, Inc.
280 Northwood Way
Box 2999
Ketchum, Idaho, 83340
Dear Smith Optics:
My name is Miles, and I am currently a junior at Animas High School in Durango Colorado. We are currently doing a project where our task is to hypothetically improve a consumer product that plays an important role in our lives. I have been an active snowboarder for 9 years and I enjoy your products. I own a pair of I/O’s and use them every weekend at the mountain and I love them. I think they’re the most comfortable and clearest snow goggles that I have owned. Although, I do believe that this great product could be improved more by including synthetic melanin in the lens. There are currently few optics companies that are creating melanin lenses for glasses but I have not found any snow goggles that include melanin in their lenses. Melanin is natural pigment found throughout the human body. Its purpose is to protect us against sunlight damage by filtering Ultraviolet (UV) and High Energy Visible (HEV) light, also known as Violet-Blue light. It provides one of the best natural defenses against the harmful effects of the sun.
Including synthetic melanin in your snow goggles lenses would have many benefits. Most lenses will filter out UV light and reduce a certain amount of visible light entering the eye. However, when synthetic melanin is infused into the lens it will provide better eye protection by filtering out up to 98% of the HEV light. It is the equivalent to a sun lotion with a SPF of 140. It reduces long-term exposure to the retina and could make up for the loss of retinal melanin that occurs with increasing age. This will help to reduce the damage that contributes to age related macular degeneration and cataracts, which could be a benefit for many older athletes. Another additional benefit is clearer vision. This is because of the high energy associated with blue light, which is scattered more than other wavelengths because it attaches to moisture in the air which results in haze. By filtering most of HEV light, melanin lenses eliminate the haze effect, allowing for better contrast, true color and sharper images.
I appreciate your consideration of my idea and welcome your feedback on this suggestion. Please feel free to contact me either at the address provided in the letterhead or by email at [email protected] .
Sincerely,
Miles Rivera
Student, Animas High School
Project Reflection
The chemistry of materials has shaped our past, present, and future in many ways. In our past we didn't have to know the chemistry but it was there, and it affected many things such as armour and weapons. Work hardening or tempering metals affects the material by making it softer or harder and even if we didn't know scientifically what it was doing to the metal, we knew what the goal was and it helped progress technology. Currently in the present we have a vast knowledge of materials on the micro scale and know how to manipulate those materials for things that we need. Our knowledge will only become greater in the future and technology will become more advanced due to the discovery and manipulation of new compounds and materials or finding new ways to use them.
The structure of matter on the atomic, molecular, microscopic, and macroscopic scales all determine a materials properties. Really, it all starts at the atomic scale because the way atoms arrange affect what kind of molecule it is. Then those molecules affect how it looks and behaves on the microscopic scale, and that continues on to the macroscopic scale. We could identify the different properties of matter on each scale but they are all affected by the previous one before it. So matter's properties are different on each scale but are all connected and those properties cause the properties that we can observe at our level.
The structure of matter on the atomic, molecular, microscopic, and macroscopic scales all determine a materials properties. Really, it all starts at the atomic scale because the way atoms arrange affect what kind of molecule it is. Then those molecules affect how it looks and behaves on the microscopic scale, and that continues on to the macroscopic scale. We could identify the different properties of matter on each scale but they are all affected by the previous one before it. So matter's properties are different on each scale but are all connected and those properties cause the properties that we can observe at our level.