Science blog

With energy issues becoming a daily subject in the news, wind energy is gaining notoriety. Here is an overview of wind farms and their potential. An Overview of Wind Farms A wind farm is simply a collection of wind turbines in a location used to produce electricity. Wind farms can be found in the United States, but are far more prevalent in Europe. China is also beginning to invest large amounts of resources in wind farms as its energy needs grow. The fundamentals of electricity production through wind farms are pretty simple. Highly efficient wind turbines are placed in locations where they will receive the maximum amount of wind energy. These turbines can be traditional horizontal windmills or vertical eggbeater windmills. Regardless, the wind turns the blades as it passes, which turns a generator within the turbine. The turning motion converts the wind energy into electricity when the generator cranks, which is then sent into a utility company power grid or stored in batteries. This process is similar to hydropower with wind being used instead of water. The stereotypical wind farm is an exercise in topography. The goal is to find locations where wind exists as frequently as possible. Put in practical terms, ideal spots are in areas where ground variation occurs as wind is produced when different surface areas heat up at different rates. As each surface heats up, the air rises and cooler air rushes in to replace it. Thus, we have wind. Given this situation, ideal locations for wind farms are often along shorelines or in valleys funneling winds from the shore. Many people are under the impression that wind farms are located only in areas of land where winds are howling through valleys and over hills. While this is certainly true, the current trend is to build wind farms off the shorelines of countries. The advantage of offshore wind farms has to do with the frequency and generation of winds. Shorelines represent fertile wind generation areas. On top of this, the open space of the ocean allows winds generated from remote locations to move towards shorelines. If you have ever spent time going sailing, you have an understanding of how strong these winds can be. On top of all of this, placing wind farms in the ocean avoids the cost of buying pricey space on land. Wind farms are up and functioning in most first world countries. The bigger issue is getting them to produce enough energy at as low a price as possible to make them a viable energy production platform.

Thought control? How would you like to be able to turn on your television just by thinking? Or have the door to your house open by mind power when your hands were full? This isn't something that will remain science fiction for long. The technology necessary to make this happen is here now. First of all, you have basic thought control now, meaning you can control and direct your thoughts. You can imagine a friend talking in your mind, for example. Then you can choose to hear music in your imagination. If you are hooked up to an electroencephalograph when you do these things, it will also be clear that these two thoughts are handled in different parts of your brain. This electroencephalogram, or EEG, is important, because what we can measure, we can use to do things. Think about this for a moment. Modern electronics has made it possible to easily operate things as a response to measurement. A thermostat measures the temperature, for example, and turns the heater on or off according to that measurement. Security lights turn themselves on when light levels get low. Thought Control Devices We can already measure and track what is going on in the brain. Is it inconceivable then, to have that measurement automatically trigger some action? For example, even before the electrical patterns of the brain were made "visible," we measured pulse rate with many different machines. Now, what if instead of sending a signal to a monitor telling a red light to go on when the heart raced, the signal told the TV to turn on? Think of anything that gets your heart racing and the TV would turn on, right? Call it mind power, thought control or whatever. You can see that such a device has been possible for at least a generation now. With new technology, and more detailed measurements of the actual electric patterns of the brain, how much more is possible? Someday, an electroencephalograph type of device will be able to more directly read your mind. The technology will eventually get to the point where it can print out the actual words you are thinking. We are a long way from that, but we are right at the brink of building machines that give us thought control of the things around us. You see, even with the crude measurements being done now, as long as we can choose what to think about, and any resulting change in the brain can be measured, the possibilities are endless. For example, we can already see the changes in the brain when a person thinks about music, versus a conversation. An existing electroencephalograph machine, using electrodes attached to your head, could be set to turn on the lights instead of producing a changing chart when you sing in your mind. For paraplegics without speech, there's real hope in this idea. A patterned alternating of thoughts could be used as a sort of Morse code, spelling out words on a screen. They could actually use thought control to make a message appear! At the current level of technology, this would be a tedious process, but the amazing thing is that all the necessary things to build a machine like this are here right now. It's time for thought control!

If you're reading this article it is possibly science fair project time. Don't put it off until until the very last moment to choose what science project you expect to try. Maybe you're agonizing over deciding on a science fair projects subject matter or just do not actually like to do science projects, that's OK because there are at this point science kits that are aimed just for science fairs. You'll find that our website has many kinds of science kits to select from. Several are aimed towards people that would like to do a project but don't think they can make one up on their own, when others grant you the freedom to design your own experiments using the kit. It is the most awesome method to create a terrific project and meet your teacher's requirements. If you are homeschooling, we have special science home schooling resources that are safe and stimulates your child's imagination. So, let's move on to see exactly what fascinates you? What will hold your interest for 2 - 5 months? Do you want to know how electricity works? One thought is the Quest Science Mysterious Energy Lab Kit that has 12-hands on electricity science experiments. Wonderful for middle school science fair projects. For almost any science fair science project our kits for science could be the best selection. From Mindstrom Robotics rockets to biology science fair projects you'll discover an outstanding choice for that science fair. Additional ideas that our internet site has got are instantly downloadable science fair ebooks. At this point you could download your science experiments in just a few minute. No matter if you are a fourth grader or a university student, renewable energy is the big topic of our planet. For the PicoTurbine Windmill science experiments Kit our company offers you twenty Completely free energy science fair projects and for professors, schools and organizations, our site has less expensive package costs for renewable energy education in the schoolroom. Another problem for the earth is energy and exactly how to acquire more resources. Would you like to produce and play around with a model alternative energy Power House? Channel the power of the wind and sun with seventy experiments in electrical energy, botany, radioactivity, and quantum physics. Generate, heat, and desalinate a water system and preserve your own food. Or how about fuel? With gasoline prices increasing, research workers are earnestly wanting to make fuel cell cars. This is one of the most important technologies of the early 21st Century. Maybe you're the person to produce a car that is fueled by water! It doesn't matter if you use a science fair kit or develop your own science fair projects that are made from your own materials, here's one of the most fundamental science fair tips that I can give to you... You'll still need to apply the six scientific method steps. Our instantly downloadable, super science fair project email book will take you through the details, step by step, to accomplish an extraordinary science fair project.

Geothermal energy is a platform tapping the inherent energy found within the Earth. Her is an overview of how the process works from a practical perspective. Producing Energy From Geothermal Resources There are several types of energy used in the world that are considered eco-friendly. These energy types include solar, which harnesses the power of the sun, and hydroelectric, which uses the power of water to generate electricity. One often neglected ecologically sound energy source that should be grouped with the others is geothermal energy. Geothermal energy involves using the Earth's own heat to create energy and warmth to be used by people. Geothermal energy is so named because it derives from the Greek words for “earth heat”, “geo” and “therme”. Extreme amounts of heat are generated in the Earth's core, which reaches temperatures of up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The Earth's core then transfers heat to the mantle, a crust of rock surrounding the core. This rock liquefies due to the intense heat becoming magma (molten rock). In this magma layer, water collects in columns or reserves. This trapped water, which can be heated to temperatures of about 700 degrees Fahrenheit, is known as a geothermal reservoir. When engineers want to use geothermal energy, they “tap” in to this geothermal water and use the resulting hot water and steam for various purposes. Geothermal energy plants work by using the steam resulting from tapping into the geothermal water reservoirs to power turbines. These turbines spin producing electricity which can then be used to power industries or even residential areas. The first geothermically engineered power plant was built in Italy in 1904. These days, roughly 7000 megawatts of electricity is produced by geothermal power plants per year. Geothermal power plants are located in 21 countries throughout the world. In the United States alone, enough geothermal power is generated per year to be the equivalent to the burning of 60 million barrels of oil, to wit, geothermal energy is a major source of power. Geothermal energy has been used by cultures throughout history for thousands of years. The process used to harness geothermal energy has always been relatively simple compared to that of other energy processes, and the components used are familiar to everyone. The concept of using super hot water from the Earth's magma layers may seem high tech, but once you have tapped into this resource, it is easy to maintain and use as a continual power source. The best analogy for geothermal energy production is another alternative energy source. It works in the same way as hydropower. Water is used to spin turbines which produce electricity. In the case of geothermal energy, however, the water comes from the internal chambers of the Earth in, most often, the form of steam.