Flaring Natural Gas in North Dakota

Due to the ever-increasing oil production in North Dakota, oil companies are choosing to burn off the natural gas. This is known as flaring.

Picture of natural gas being flared in North Dakota

The companies do this in order to access the more valuable oil, without having to transport the natural gas. There are so many fires that combine to produce lights that make North Dakota look like it has a cluster of cities in the western part of the state, as shown in the picture below:

This however is a terrible waste of gas and money, but currently there are no pipelines in this area of North Dakota. Oil can be transported by train, but pipelines or specially designed tanks are necessary for transportation of natural gas. Oil Companies are being sued by mineral owners for the lost income due to the burnt gas. Thus a solution needs to be reached where the natural gas can be transported, or refined nearby, to save money and use the valuable resources coming from the ground.

An article from NYT addressing this issue is found below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/business/energy-environment/oil-companies-are-sued-over-natural-gas-flaring-in-north-dakota.html?src=recg

Another article I found from geology.com addresses this issue as well:
http://geology.com/stories/13/natural-gas-flaring-in-north-dakota/

Current Limitations of Fusion Energy

Although fusion energy seems to always be having a breakthrough, an article I just read seems to suggest that not enough energy (no pun intended) is put towards substantial advancement in this field. Although fusion energy could take care of energy problems and emissions for many years to come, and change the economy, scientists still have not been able to get more energy out than they have put in. A breakthrough was obtained when scientists were able to get more energy out of the fuel than the energy hitting the fuel. However the amount of energy generated was significantly lower than the of the amount of energy used to create the light (energy) that hit the fuel.


The above picture shows a facility where a 2 million joule laser is fired at the fuel to produce a fusion reaction

The problem with fusion energy is that it takes enormous amount of energy to create an environment where a fusion reaction will take place. However, if conditions could be reached where a high-yield fusion reaction could take place, it would take very little fuel to produce enormous amounts of power, as energy equals the mass dissipated in the reaction, times the speed of light squared, or the famous e=mc^2. Since the speed of light is 300 million meters/second, a efficient fusion reaction would take hardly any fuel at all. Therefore, fusion energy could experience a breakthrough in the near future, or it could continue to slowly progress without ever becoming a viable source of energy.

Nobel Prize for Chemistry

As many of you may have heard, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday this past week. What the three scientists were awarded for was developing a computer program that simulated chemical process. This was an extremely useful development, as chemical processes are very complex and it can be difficult to determine what is going on. As a chemical engineering major, I see the importance of this programming to improve the products and the efficiency of the process. An article detailing who won the Nobel Prize and a little background on the whole subject in found at the following link:

Nobel for Trio Who Took Chemistry to Cyberspace

Promising Future for Plastic Solar Cells (Science in the News Summary)

Fellman, Megan. (2013, August 14). Plastic solar cells’ new design promises bright

future. McCormick Northwestern Engineering. Retrieved October 3, 2013, from: http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2013/08/plastic-solar-cells-new-design-promises-bright-future.html

Fellman’s Article introduced the topic of plastic solar cells and their potentially positive future. While silicon solar cells have been used for years as alternative source of energy, they are heavy and are expensive to produce. Silicon solar cells are expensive mainly due to the cost that it takes to purify the silicon. Plastic (or polymer) based solar cells are much lighter and flexible which opens up possibilities that are not available with silicon solar cells. One example cited in the article is the possibility of manufacturing it in rolls, much like paper is produced. However, plastic solar cells have not been a viable option due to inefficiency. Though the science behind how solar cells function is very complex, researchers at Northwestern University and other universities around the world have come up with a way to make plastic solar cells nearly as efficient as typical silicon cells. Simply put, in past inefficient plastic cells, the electrons (electricity) being donated by the polymer chains was being wasted as it would be recaptured by the cell due to disorganization. What the new research has been able to do is orient the polymer chains and other components within the solar cell in order to greatly improve upon the power-conversion efficiency.

Above picture demonstrating the flexibility of plastic solar cells

The article was based on research and featured quotes from Tobin Marks of Northwestern University.  The article started out with a good “hook” of how using energy from the sunlight is a prominent form of alternative energy. However, after this opening statement it stopped talking about the economics and possibilities involved with plastic solar cells, which would have been helpful to any reader. However I did find another article that covers some more of these topics for those who are interested. Fellman’s article also got very technical, as it assumed that you knew what a fill-factor and other technical terms are, but it was still very informative for the experienced reader. It also prompts further research on what an inexperienced reader might not know about solar cells. Currently, I believe that silicon solar cells are not usually an economically viable option compared to coal-produced energy due to the large upfront cost. If plastic solar cells could greatly reduce the upfront cost, this would encourage more people to buy into solar energy. A flexible product would also have many more applications. But when will (if ever) plastic solar cells be a sustainable energy option in the future? What are the effects that plastic solar cells would have on alternative energy? Should we look at replacing coal power with plastic solar cells or other alternative energy should the technology make it sustainable and economical?