The Horse 2019/20

What is Nuclear Energy?

Nuclear energy is a hot topic in today’s world. Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind haven’t yet proven themselves as viable solutions to meet the population’s wide-scale energy needs. With constantly growing energy demands, it’s imperative we explore nuclear as a dependable energy source. The process used to produce nuclear energy is called fission. Nuclear fission occurs when the atom of a nucleus is split, releasing very large amounts of energy. In nuclear power plants, atoms are continuously split, creating chain reactions that provide high amounts of sustainable energy for a long period of time. Nuclear Energy is not renewable.

Some Pros about Nuclear Energy: Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions, High Power Output, Inexpensive Electricity

Some Cons about Nuclear Energy: Past History of Nuclear Accidents, Target for Terrorism, Not a Renewable Fuel Source

Source: Kernenergie

Situation in Switzerland

In Switzerland there are 3 nuclear power plants. In the last few years the nuclear power plants lost their popularity, if you can say that like that. The danger and the waste produce of them is just too high. In 2017 the Swiss Voters accepted the energy strategy 2050. This means the nuclear power plants will shut down until 2050 and there will be no new ones built.

Impact on humans and the environement

If nuclear power is not handled correctly and there is a mistake, it can directly kill cells, or it can cause mutations to DNA. If those mutations are not repaired, the cell may turn cancerous. However Nuclear energy has perhaps the lowest impact on the environment. Including air, land, water, and wildlife of any energy source. It produces no harmful greenhouse gases, isolates its waste from the environment, and requires less area to produce the same amount of electricity as other sources.

How Long does it last

At the current rate of uranium consumption with conventional reactors, the world supply of viable uranium, which is the most common nuclear fuel, will last for 80 years.

Uranium mining

2 Examples

Efficiency of Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy has by far the highest capacity of any other energy source. This basically means nuclear power plants are producing maximum power more than 92% of the time during the year. That's about 1.5 to 2 times more as natural gas and coal units, and 2.5 to 3.5 times more reliable than wind and solar plants.

Usage of Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Energy is mostly used to produce electricity for our households.

Quiz Question:

Ho much of the worlds electricity is produced by Nuclear Energy?

A) 20%       B) 14%      C) 49%

Source: Nuclear Power Facts

Vocabulary:

Renewable -> Erneuerbar

Fission -> Kernspaltung

Target -> Ziel

Nina & Elena

Energy carrier wind

Wind power is a sustainable and renewable Energy, and has a much smaller Impact on the Environment compared to Burning fossil

Biogas and natural gas

The 2 most important gases used as an energy carrier is the natural gas (Erdgas) and the biogas. It is important to mention that there exist a lot of other different types of gases but since these are the most common ones we will explain those. The biggest difference between natural gas (Erdgas) and biogas is that the biogas is renewable and the natural gas is not.More...

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements; chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. As a fossil fuel burned for heat, coal supplies about a quarter of the world's primary energy and two-fifths of its electricity. Some iron and stell making and other industrial processes burn coal.

Advantages:
Workplaces
Cost effective resource

Disadvantages
Potancial damage to the environment 

Question?

How long does coal exist?

Sources:

Kohle Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft

Advantages and disadvantages

How energy works

Vocabulary:

combustible - brennbar

strata- Schichten

Deepening of Coal
Coal, which has been a primary energy source for more than a century, began to form during the Carboniferous period, which took place between 360 and 290 million years ago. Plant matter accumulated in swamps and peat bogs, and after being buried and exposed to high heat and pressure — largely due to the shifting of tectonic plates — it was transformed into the coal that powered the industrial revolution and that the mining industry uses today. 

Coal is the energy carrier with the biggest total resource. The advantage of coal is that coal is available over the world. Coal is problematic because it has an incredible CO2 emissions. In Switzerland was coal to the middle of the 20 century the main carrier and was used mostly for primarly energy as fuel. The most important coversion in the second energie was with coal gasifaction for the city energy. The role of coal in switzerland is so inncuous that in 1998 the coal carrier was canceled.The return of coal as a energy carrier in Switzerland is not really believable. 

Lignite is the youngest type of coal. It is soft and ranges in color from black to shades of brown. As a result, it’s sometimes called brown coal. Lignite is mainly used for electricity generation and accounts for 17 percent of the world’s coal reserves.

Advantages of Lignite coal:

Team: Dominic/Giorgio

Oil as an energy source

Oil is a fossil energy carrier and it's non-renewable. In general, oil is a liquid that is made up of organic molecules. However, the world oil in the context of the energy sector is the liquid fossil fuel that is extracted from the ground. Roughly 1/3 of the world's primary energy comes from this primary fuel. One barrell of oil equals approximately 159 liters.

With these pumps the workers gain the oil from the underground. More...

Geothermal energy is the heat coming from the earth and is located under the surface of it. The heat is more extrem the further you go into the earth. Several Miles into the earth you can find the magma rocks, which are extremly hot. However you can already find some heat from shallow ground. More...

Photovoltaics

Photovoltaics is based on the ability of certain materials to convert light directly into electricity. The most common application of solar energy collection outside agriculture are solar water heating systems. Although the basic physical principle has been known for a long time, the technical development of solar cells is far form complete, and further improvements can be expected in the future.

Solar energy could be used for example for power in the oven or heating hot water for a bath. The structure of use is the same.

Picture

Question:

In which direction the solar cells should be aligned best?

1. east

2. west

3. nord

4. south 

Vocabulary

solar Energy - Solar Energie

solar cells - Solarzellen

photovoltaics - Photovoltaik

Link: Solar energy

Team Luca Maschek and Diego Di Martino

W7: 3/25 Wednesday * 2020

Special - Distance learning experiment II

Good morning! To the program & tasks >

Team: Luana & Elena, BM2 VZA 

Food-Ocki 

Food Waste is a big topic in the modern world, and sadly it happens way too often. While we are throwing away food because the expiry date tells us to do so (even thought the food is still edible), other people on this earth are starving because they don't have any food at all. 

It's nice to see that a lot of restaurants have already found solutions for this problem. For example; customers get notified about the leftover food through an app and can pick it up for a bargain price. 

Although not all restaurants are this sustainable, we think the bigger problem are households, like us. Most of us throw food away which could still be enjoyed by somebody else. 

So, our idea is: Every big city should open up a Food-Ocki ! 

What is that, Food-Ocki? 

It is a place where you can go to bring your food which you don't want to eat anymore but is still edible. So leftovers or expired, but not bad, food. 

What is the Food-Ocki going to do with this food?

We will firstly check if the food really is still edible. If it is, there are 2 options: 

Option 1: We bring it to homeless people. 
Option 2: We sell it in our shop, for a very low price. 

Why the name "Food-Ocki"?

Ocki comes from Brocki, but since we are selling food, it's Food-Ocki... get it? :) 

Results

If 10 people would use this system, there would be less Food Waste and min. 10 more people could eat something. 

If 10 people would not use this system, there would be a lot more Food Waste and min. 10 people who could have eaten something, are starving now. 

Hello everyone

We tend to consider it a given that sharing is a good thing. As children, we're taught (and made) to share our toys, our crayons, and our rooms. As we age, our toys and our personal space become larger and more expensive, and we share them less and less, but we still value the idea of sharing. There are lots of ways to share resources as adults, including shared gardens, food, meals, jobs and many more. More...