Renewable Energy Group

for Dr. Urey's URP 4370 class (fall 2019). by ES & DM

[urp4370-blog]

Preparation notes for group facilitation presentation on 11/25

URP 4370 – Presentation Day

Open with question to the audience about their knowledge on the topic. 

Add a small video clip about the topic.

Distribute reading material and break into groups. (Find a small reading that is about 1pg ½)

Groups will come back as a class to discuss overall opinion.

Kahoot!

Open floor to questions?

[npr]

Tesla Begins Taking Orders For Its Solar Energy Roof Tile Systems

The company offers an "infinity" warranty on its tiles that integrate solar power into roof coverings. Tesla has published a web tool that can estimate costs and savings.

[liberalsarecool]

We should be subsidizing solar, not oil. The oil companies are 19th century dirty energy, totally dependent on taxpayer welfare. Let’s follow Germany’s leadership.

[eco-socialism]

All-girl engineer team invents solar-powered tent for the homeless

A group of teen girls learned to code, solder, sew, and 3D-print to invent a solar-powered tent for the homeless.

[did-you-know]

Germany had so much renewable energy on May 8, 2016, that it had to pay citizens to use electricity. It was so windy and sunny that turbines and solar power sources were supercharged, output exceeded demand, and prices went negative, so customers were actually paid to consume energy. Source

[solarpunkwitchcraft]

Baltimore's solar-powered water wheel has now removed 1.1 million lbs of rubbish from the river

It's nicknamed "Mr. Trash Wheel" and it has removed more than 8 million cigarette butts and half a million polystyrene containers from Baltimore's Inner...

[resistdrumpf]

Trump’s Solar Tariffs Are Clouding the Industry’s Future

At a solar farm in North Carolina, workers are bracing for the effect of a new tariff on imported solar cells and modules.

[sunkeepersolarpunkmusic]

Germany has so much renewable energy it is paying people to use electricity

German energy consumers were paid to use power over the Christmas period, thanks to a slump in demand, warm weather and plenty of wind power on the grid, trading data shows. Power prices slipped into negative territory on 24 December and again on 26 December, according to the website of the EPEX Spot, which is Europe’s biggest power trading exchange.

Think twice before you adopt the belief that we live on a planet of scarcity. Abundance exists! My solarpunk novel called The Carbon Coast is set in a future where renewable energies are everywhere and the planet has a chance to breathe. Why am I imagining this future?

Because we can replace fossil fuels with renewable, abundant energy. It will cause growing pains, but we have to make this change, and I hope my novel will inspire people to believe in that future

follow @thecarboncoast for more posts like this and info about the novel

[urp4370-blog]

Group Knowledge Process

Our group was formed as the “Renewable Energy” group because Darlene and I had chosen similar topics. She had chosen solar panels and I chose solar farms to focus on for this term. We both have had decent exposure to this topic from previous classes, so we were somewhat familiar with it already. For our group facilitation activity, we chose to use our 50-minute slot through doing selected readings, short discussions based on the readings, and a quiz via kahoot at the end. We split up the work and used google docs/slides to put our group facilitation presentation on. Darlene set up the PowerPoint presentation and chose an introductory video about renewable energy. She had also selected an article, and I chose the second article. We each read the articles and created quiz questions based on what we read, which we made through kahoot.

Neither of us had ever made a kahoot. I had only known about this game through using it in other classes. So, we had to learn how to create an account, and develop the quiz on this website. The hardest part was coming up with wrong answers, since the quiz questions were supposed to be multiple choice.

I was also the one to create the group deliverable, which we had decided to make through tumblr. I have had previous experience using tumblr, so it was not much of a challenge for me, so I was the one in charge of putting together the group deliverable. We created a new account just for our group project. The URL is: urp4370.tumblr.com. On this tumblr, since the theme of our group project was renewable energy, I re-blogged links and images of things related to renewable energy. I shared articles about both of our topics, solar panels and solar farms, and put some of our personal work (such as the individual research paper) from the semester on to our blog.

Overall, we learned a lot about each of our topics through our research and hope that our deliverable (the tumblr blog) and group facilitation presentation had a lasting impact on people.

[urp4370-blog]

California clean energy proposals face demise as opposition fails to yield

California has grown accustomed to setting benchmark after benchmark on environmental policies, but ambitious efforts to spread renewable energy around the state and the region could grind to a halt this week.

Reading 2/2 of group facilitation presentation on 11/25.

[urp4370-blog]

California has too much solar power. That might be good for ratepayers

California set two renewable energy records last week: the most solar power ever flowing on the state’s main electric grid, and the most solar power ever taken offline because it wasn’t needed.

Reading 1/2 from group facilitation presentation on 11/25

[urp4370-blog]

Introduction video used for group facilitation presentation on 11/25

[urp4370-blog]

URP 4370 Group Progress #3

URP 4370 Group Progress #3 Darleen Mendez, Eileen Santos Instruction Time: 1 hour Agenda Introduction. Our group would like to start off by asking a quick question to the class about their personal knowledge on what is RENEWABLE ENERGY. This can help us better understand what they know and how t...

Notes for our group facilitation presentation for 11/25. 

[urp4370-blog]

California Mandate for 100% Clean Energy by 2045 Signed Into Law

Countering the Trump administration’s call for more coal and oil, California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday inked legislation that requires utilities to obtain 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2045.

[materialsworld]

Apple goes all green

Credit: Apple

Yesterday Apple announced that its global facilities are now powered with 100% clean energy. This includes retail stores, offices, data centres, and co-located facilities in 43 countries, including the USA, UK, China, and India. It also announced that nine additional manufacturing partners have committed to power all of their Apple production with 100% clean energy.

Apple currently has 25 operational renewable energy projects around the world, totalling 626 megawatts of generation capacity – 286 megawatts of solar PV generation came online in 2017, the most ever in one year. It also has 15 more projects in construction. Once built, over 1.4 gigawatts of clean renewable energy generation will be spread across 11 countries.

The projects represent a diverse range of energy sources, including solar arrays and wind farms as well as emerging technologies like biogas fuel cells, micro-hydro generation systems, and energy storage technologies.

[jamabushi]

Solar Farm near Death Valley, CA (1980s)

[zerostatereflex]

China Just Built A 250-Acre Solar Farm Shaped Like A Giant Panda

Lol, noice.

“To create the visual effect of darker and lighter solar panels, Panda Green Energy used both darker monocrystalline silicon and lighter thin film cells.  This allowed the energy company to stagger the solar panels in an array that mimics the coloring and shape of a giant panda.”