Seminar, Senior Section 001, Fall 2004
Agenda 6 for October 18
Course web site: http://www.is.wayne.edu/drbowen/SenSemF04 I. Announcements: A. We will continue to meet in 220 Cohn at (6 9:40 PM). Several people who took part in the online session last week suggested that we should repeat the online session, which would mean that for at least one week we would not meet face-to-face. B. Section 4 of your paper is due next week (October 25). This section is on "Alternate Fuels", but substitute your own title. Turn in a Paper Planning Form as well. C. I will divide you into groups to compare your Portfolios, and then each of you will write an assessment of your own. D. Reminder about Online Course Information Form. E. Reminder about weekly email to [e-mail] about a research source. Be specific in these messages: (a) what information (for example, not just a general web site) and (b) in which section would you use it F. You should have finished your fuel and occupancy logs, and brought the data to class. We will go through the calculations in class. For the fuel log, there is a spreadsheet available on the course web site to do the calculations and allow some "what if" analysis. G. The online Grade Reports are working; there is a link on the course web site. Before the Grade Reports will work for you, you first have to use the online Course Information Form to change GradeReports(Yes/No) from No to Yes. H. Much work has not yet been turned in, and the semester is almost half over. What is going on? I. I have found several instances of plagiarism in this course. If you have any doubt about what plagiarism is, or what the consequences will be, you should review the Plagiarism section of the course Syllabus, and the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies' (DIS) guidelines at http://www.is.wayne.edu/Policies/Plagiarism.htm. I am changing my Plagiarism policy for this course. The Syllabus says that work with plagiarism will be treated as if it were not submitted, with the student free to resubmit. From now on, after the first instance for any student (or after the second instance for the current cases), the memo to the department describing the plagiarism (see DIS guidelines) will also warn the student that the next instance will result in failure for the assignment, and an instance after that will result in failure for the course. II. Grammar and writing A. Functional grammar 1. Purpose of grammar is to communicate 2. Language (and rules) change over time. Examples: a. "Never split an infinitive" is a former rule that has been abandoned. Infinitive is "to" form of verb, for example "to go." Splitting an infinitive was to put any
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Agenda 4 word in between "to" and the verb. Formerly,"to boldly go where no man has gone before" would have broken this rule and been rejected. b. A current rule that may be disappearing is that the number and case of a noun and verb must agree, specifically in the case of an "of" phrase, as in "a group of journalists is/are going to Baghdad." "Group" is the noun here, so according to the rule, the verb should be the singular "is" (imagine saying this without "of journalists") but increasingly we see "are" used. B. What is the function of documenting references? Styles: This course, and most of DIS uses Modern Language Association (MLA). MLA put author and page inside parentheses, for example (Riley 37) and then full reference in List of Works Cited (without the page). This works if the paper has only one work cited by that author. Alternately, refer to author in text, then put page in parentheses, for example, As Riley says (37),... If you cite more than work by the same author in your paper, then include the year of the publication in the parentheses. 1. I even see some mixing of reference styles in chapters. Be consistent. (1) Use the MLA style or (2) if you use another style, don't mix styles. C. Organization: smooth transitions, treating topics one by one in a logical order, not hopping from one subject to another. USE Paper Planning Form for next assignment. III. News stories handout IV. Review course overview. (Please note, this course is not about "political correctness" or what any single individual should do. It is about what Michigan and Southeastern Detroit should do to prepare for coming changes in the automobile industry. In addition, individuals should be able to learn how expected changes could affect them.) A. Dependence on (and love of) the automobile and the internal combustion engine are built into American society through suburbanization, jobs and investments. Southeastern Michigan, or the Greater Detroit Area, is direct beneficiaries of this. B. Several problems will most likely affect the automobile business over the next decades: shortfalls in the petroleum supply (causing higher fuel prices), limits on use of carbonbased fuels due to global warming, increasing traffic congestion, and concern over safety. C. These problems, or even earlier, the perception of them, will mean fundamental changes in the automobile businesses. Adaptations can include any or all of (a) increased vehicle fuel efficiency, (b) switching to alternate fuels or energy sources, and (c) changes in society to require less driving, such as living closer to work, and carpooling. D. All of these changes will affect the automobile business, and open up opportunities for new players to enter. The Detroit Metropolitan Area, with its dependence on the automobile business, should take steps to accommodate these trends so that we can stay in the business. E. Other concerns, not specific to the Detroit Metropolitan Area, but national in scope, include (a) lower rates of economic growth due to higher energy costs, (b) dependence on unstable areas of the world for a critical resource (fuel), and decreasing competitiveness with respect to these other areas of the world. V. Content: review of last classes A. Present situation 1. History
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Agenda 4 2. Why Detroit? 3. Current statistics 4. Chemistry basics 5. Emission regulations 6. Mileage regulations (CAFE) 7. Petroleum supply B. Coming crises in personal transportation (automobile) 1. There is a general crisis, this is a part of it 2. Global warming 3. Petroleum supply 4. Congestion 5. Safety VI. Coming crisis in personal transportation (automobile) (Chpt 3) A. Ideas for curbing use of cars, more and more cities doing this. B. Global warming 1. Effects a. Current: glaciers melting, rising sea level, spring coming earlier, species shifting breeding patters b. Future possible effects - ecosystem services: desertification, coastal flooding, weather more unstable, health, disruption of ecosystems c. Some feel we can adapt to the temperature increases more cheaply than we can control them but we do not know the full consequences d. Once it starts, some indications that it may not be reversible (positive feedback) 2. Possible actions all involve complex systems with long lead times. a. Some actions now states, insurance companies - CARB b. Limit production of CO2 c. Switch fuels / energy systems switch to fuels with less C and more H C + O2 CO2 2H2 + O2 2H2O Unfortunately, fuels with lots of H are gases, require lots of storage room: CH4 (methane, or natural gas) & H (may be able to store this at high density in special metallic materials), no also natural sources of hydrogen. It will take as much energy to generate hydrogen (actually more once losses are taken into account) as we get from it. Hydrogen is not a solution all by itself; it pushes the questions back to what energy source we use to generate the hydrogen. Switching fuels will take a lot of time and money, unless the fuel is very similar to gasoline (liquid, processing can use present facilities with modifications). d. Reforestation e. Sequestration (will not work for transportation) 3. There is a strong scientific consensus in favor of Global Warming. Political and economic fields, there is often disagreement. C. New concept of personal transportation (Chpt 2) 1. Increase occupancy, decrease size (congestion) and mass (ULM), special-purpose vehicles
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Agenda 4 2. Types: light general-purpose, commuter, narrow lane, urban car, sub-car 3. The marketplace design, concept how to make these attractive? D. To put a new system into place requires not only large investments, but also a path from here to wherever we are going to end up. In the face of uncertainty, a path with many options is desireable. VII. Energy use in the automobile - gasoline engine energy losses Chapter 3 A. Pumping losses. The harder you drive a conventional gasoline engine, the more efficient it is (except at 90% or more of maximum output, when other losses predominate). Larger engines are driven less hard, and so have worse mileage. B. Carnot efficiency low efficiency for converting heat to motion. C. The rest of the machinery that gets power to the driving wheels (transmission, bearings) is much more efficient, except that four-wheel drive is noticeably less efficient than two-wheel drive. D. Other factors reducing mileage are 1. Larger vehicle mass 2. Larger frontal area. 3. Larger coefficient of drag. VIII. Alternative Fuels Chapter 4 A. Gasoline: very nearly an ideal fuel for transportation. B. Methanol (wood alcohol, CH3OH) and ethanol (grain alcohol, C2H5OH). C. Natural Gas (methane, CH4). D. Electricity (batteries are so far a problem) E. Hydrogen (H). No natural supplies, must be generated at a net loss of energy. Environmental impact depends on energy use used to generate electricity. Requires a complete new infrastructure. Storage either bulky or complex. Can be used in an internal combustion engine, as with gasoline or alcohol (with Carnot losses) or in a hydrogen fuel cell in which chemical energy is converted directly to electrical energy, bypassing an intermediate heat stage, and also bypassing the high Carnot losses. F. Alternate energy sources: 1. Coal, natural gas, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion have abundant domestic supplies, at present rates of usage. Nuclear fusion is not presently practical, but has virtually unlimited supplies, and would emit very little radiation. a. Nuclear fission: breaking large nuclei such as uranium and plutonium, into smaller ones, with a release of energy b. Nuclear fusion: joining light nuclei, such as hydrogen, into heavier ones, with a release of energy. Water H2O can be the source of the hydrogen. 2. Riley says that the ethanol supply is limited, if ethanol is made from corn. Methanol can be made from natural gas, so it has a large supply base. 3. Electricity does not gain energy, since more is used in its generation than it delivers to the user, but it is a very convenient and flexible form of energy. It is very difficult to store electrical energy, and much energy is lost if it is transmitted for hundreds of miles. This loss would vanish if room-temperature superconductivity is found. 4. Solar energy is currently expensive, and since it is turned into electrical energy, expensive to transmit. In many areas of the country, its supply is intermittent. If electrical energy could be generated in the US at the highest-intensity sites, which
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Agenda 4 are also much more reliable, and transmitted within the US (see above), then we would have plenty of energy at current levels. 5. The US has less wind energy than solar, and without any breakthroughs, wind energy can at best be important in some local areas. Wind energy is also intermittent. Currently, it is also expensive. IX. Electric and Hybrid vehicles A. Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV). Charge up battery at wall outlet and drive. Compared with carbon-based fuels, battery storage of energy is expensive and low capacity. With current technology and vehicle designs, BEVs would have severely limited ra...