J.B. Speed School of Eng. Renewable Energy

12:21 am | Green | No comment

For a summer course, students at the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, develop renewable energy projects. Students utilized a selection of different backgrounds, from chemical engineering to physics, to develop the system.

Here are some videos of some student projects that are quite interesting: Thermoelectricity, Solar powered hydrogen production, Solar powered LED, Human powered LED, and Solar cooling.

3 High School Students on Nanotechnology

12:49 am | Green | No comment

The country’s well-known pre-college science competitions have chosen three high school students for the semifinalists in the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search (”Intel STS”).

Arunima Deya Balan, a student at Niskayuna High School in Niskayuna, NY, is working on clean energy research that uses nanotechnology to imitate the optical processes in photosynthesis. She aims to develop more effective photovoltaic carbon nanotube diodes by reproducing the highly efficient process of changing sunlight into energy.

Ian Michael Schneider, who goes to Byram Hills High School in Armonk, NY, is also performing a research in the area of renewable energy. His project is for the purpose of intensifying the efficiency of thin film solar photovoltaic devices, which have demonstrated considerable potential to lower the cost of manufacturing while providing a clean and sustainable source of energy.

Xiao Rui Guo, a student at the Berkshire School in Sheffield, MA, is working on the development of bioengineered surfaces for depositing hydrogel microarrays containing biological molecules and cells, which has the potential to significantly reduce the cost and usage of animal models in drug and healthcare product development.

High School team discover color changing roof

11:46 pm | Green | No comment

Alan Zube, the Washington County Technical High School teacher instantly considered about the grant when the concept for an energy-efficient, color-changing roof came up in his Civil and Architectural Engineering class last year.

The InvenTeam grant picked out Tech High to be one of the 15 high school teams nationwide to be given a grant for their discovery formally known as “Temperature-sensitive, color-changing roof to combat global warming”. The only team chosen this year to represent Maryland was granted $6,500 for the venture.

Washington County Technical High School students, from left, Deanna Molnar, Amy Syverson, Jakob Scharmer and Ashley Willingham discuss developing a temperature-sensitive, color-changing roof to combat global warming. The school was awarded $6,500 for the project through a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant.

Chosen by his fellow students as a team head, senior Cody Case, 17, is in command of organizing the schedules and deadlines and keeping the team on duty as well as verifying the project blogs and Website are in order or up to date.

They look forward to having four test modules – 4-by-4-foot sheds that serve as a model of the interior of a house. The handy units will have data collectors within. The idea is to begin with a unit with a black shingle roof and one with a white shingle roof.

During winter months, nearly all information gatherings will be finished that will give the team the vital information to limit project options.

MBA students drive projects for Climate Summit

5:16 pm | Green | No comment

“Going green” is the focus of the climate summit in Denmark, concentrating on global methods in reducing future greenhouse gases and assure businesses that becoming green will be good in the end.

Proposed projects could lessen energy use by 160 million kilowatt hours a year (fit to power 14,000 homes) and get rid of the 100,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas secretions annually.

The 2009 class of 26 Climate Corps fellows identified energy efficiency opportunities at 23 companies.

The members are also MBA students even though they have environmental experiences to understand the bottom line.

Seven interns have seen $35million and $120million possible energy effectiveness in the first year of the project. Projects that have 97% possible energy savings have been finished or are being implemented.

An intern at an IT services firm in Philadelphia fixed a problem by putting timers on the lights on one floor of a building. The cost: $ 0. The savings:  $20,000 a year.

Ian Lavery, a graduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management was dared to dig a lot deeper because EMC has been committed to energy effectiveness for the past 20 years.

Lavery, 29, an Arlington native, gave EMC seven suggestions. However, Lavery’s analysis of how to enhance the cooling system of company’s technology labs was the idea that caught the attention of EMC.

It is an inspiration to see people who are going to run corporate America in the next few years who are so focused on the environment. It really pays to be green.

TSU students give green energy a workout

5:25 pm | Green, TSU | No comment

It may sound like a forced labor camp, but up close the world’s largest human power plant looks like a lot of fun.

Calories to Kilowatts, a green technology project that those students at Texas State University illustrated by mounting elliptical machines in the recreation center to show that it converts exercise into electricity, supplying it back into the university’s power grid.

Texas State earned the title “world’s largest human power plant” because of its stock of 30 machines.

Clearwater, Fla., -based ReRev., is the only company in the world that builds the technology.

The 30 machines with sensors and other equipment were modified by the Texas State in the amount of $20,000. It transforms kinetic energy produced by exercise into electricity. It can charge a cell phone six times more or power a laptop computer for one hour with one 3o-minute workout.

A sticker on every machine has tips for reducing energy consumption in student’s everyday lives.

It is to instill the idea of sustainability in their minds and not produce enough power to run the university. In seven or eight years, the university could recover the money they spent although it is not essential than the learning factor.

Blair Hart-ley, a graduate student who assisted to develop the project for an independent-study class said that the project will tell students the amount of physical energy it will take to produce a minimal amount of electricity.

The students have already proven that they are sincere about getting green.

Students paid $1 for an environmental fund that sponsors project like a rainwater collection system and a big fertilizer pile that converts cafeteria waste into rich soil.

Calories to Kilowatts was paid half by the fund while the other half was paid by the campus recreation.

Wash U students design light-harvesting bacteria

4:44 pm | Green, Washington University | No comment

A group of 10 students consist of Washington University’s first-ever team to go into the most important undergraduate challenge in synthetic biology, the International Genetically Engineered  Machine competition (iGEM), gained international recognition for their design of an efficient light-harvesting bacterium with the possibility of improving biofuel production. They spent the summer working together in creating a photosynthetic bacterium that would vary its output based on the total availability of light.

They earned a gold medal for their efforts when they came home from the annual iGEM conference held at the end of October at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Scientists have gathered for the last few decades about the advantages of the resources of genetics and molecular biology in the emerging field of synthetic biology. The synthetic biologists aim to control existing organisms to do new techniques or work more proficiently or even make entirely new organisms.

The tools and methods used in synthetic biology are nothing special but the involvement is great. Synthetic biology can be used to produce biofuels and medicines, but hypothetically speaking, it can also be used to make powerful biological weapons.

Jacob Rubens, a senior majoring in biology, started the project while he was doing research in his biology professor’s laboratory.

The team started to do something first with bioenergy applications and a library of genetic parts at their disposal and opt to work with a relatively simple organism, Rhodobacter sphaeroides. They rely on reality that to collect more sunlight efficiently, many photosynthetic bacteria put out their light-harvesting antennae. Humans will have a problem who wants to use them to make biofuels in low light because these organisms have mutated to produce large and longer antennae than they need to be resulting in lower effectiveness because some cells absorb more light than they can turn into energy.

They designed a group of genes that would let the bacteria to enlarge and draw back their antennae according to light’s availability. They depend on the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, a catalogue of gene sequences with known functions, or “biological Lego pieces” so that they could combine and match to achieve this. The parts they mend together consist of a genetic machine.

By building a large light-harvesting antenna, any cell suggesting DNA cycle would react to high levels of light. They took advantage of the bacterium’s simplicity to show that their idea works even though it is not used in commercial biofuel research and development. People in the future could adjust their genetic composition to work in other species.

LSU students building mobile hybrid bio-diesel

5:02 pm | Green, LSU | No comment

12 engineering students are making diagrams in creating the first mobile hybrid bio-diesel demonstrator instead of buying blue books and scantrons in preparing for the finals.

The final project of these engineering students’ 2009-2010 senior capstone design curriculum is the Tiger Truck.

The 12 students will dismantle a fire truck and will be transformed into a mobile lab that fries food with the use of used waste vegetable oil as bio-diesel that will operate the truck to go to community schools and public activities.

Both mechanical and biological engineering students will operate together on the assignment hoping that their creation will attract and promote environmental awareness.

Tiger Truck Team

The fully functional fire truck was donated by the Dularge Fire Department in Dularge, LA. Its durable application frame is a perfect match. The firefighting tools were removed so that they can install a fryer at the back.

The truck which will also be converted into a hybrid is also a fully enclosed unit that is self-supporting. It won’t just operate by bio-diesel alone as it also produces its own electricity.

Tiger Truck Design

The team is optimistic about obtaining donations for the Tiger Truck project since its projected budget is between $25,000 and $35,000. The bio-diesel hybrid truck is probably the most complicated and challenging project for a student team.

Blake Andermann, a mechanical engineering senior said that “Bio-diesel is not a fiction; it is for real that we can use everyday to eliminate the use of petroleum-based products”.

The team had presented the plans for the project this December and the construction will start during the spring semester.

The team wants the project to be completed on April 22 for the Earth Day presentations even though it is due on the 20^th of May.

Students and Coke Solve Recycling

1:34 am | Green, Montana State University | No comment

Since last year, a group of students from Montana State University Billings produced a long-term scheme to recycle aluminum cans and plastic bottles in two of their campuses, the main and the College of Technology.

The university’s Environmental Awareness Club and student government worked together to set up recycling bins.

EAC president, Joe Krenzer, said that MSU Billings has ever since collected recyclable waste, but earlier attempts were done irregularly or on a building-by-building basis.

Krenzer who graduated at Skyview High in 2004 is a senior majoring in biology.

Krenzer’s club and the Associated Students of MSU Billings built up a long-term complete recycling program a year ago. Students anticipated that the project might take five years to fulfill because the limited funds of ASMSUB would be use to buy collection bins.

Last April, they had enough money to purchase about 50 blue bins for recycling stations throughout the entire Liberal Arts Building and the library that had three bins for each station – one each for aluminum cans, plastic bottles and white office paper.

PAUL RUHTER/Gazette Staff
Jason Rodriguez and Joe Krenzer assemble a 55-gallon recycling barrel at Montana State University Billings. The barrels and most supplies were donated by Coca-Cola Bottling Co. in Billings and are distributed around the campus.

Last summer, Jason Rodriguez, an accounting student and ASMSUB’s sustainability coordinator, found out that Coca-Cola assists recycling projects around the country. Supported by Tyler Harris, president of ASMSUB and Joe Godfrey, a business manager, Rodriguez contacted Coke’s Billings office and convinced the company to donate 55-gallon plastic barrels used to ship concentrated Coca-Cola syrup.

MSU Billings students and workers from Coca-Cola Bottling work on turning used and empty 55-gallon barrels into recycling bins. Wooden dividers will allow the bins to receive both aluminum cans and plastic bottles.

ASMSUB senators Ashley Adams, left, and Grace Horman climbed inside the empty barrels to affix handles for the new recycling bins.

Montana State University Billings students and Coca-Cola Bottling employees stand with two of the recently completed recycling bins that will be dispatched around the MSU Billings campus.

Doug Becker, the company’s sales center manager in Billings, said that Coke had spares transported in from the West Coast for the large number barrels that the students needed.

Coke also supplied the red-and-white plastic signs that wrap around the barrels and domed lids with holes for cans and bottles while the student government purchased plywood used to separate cans from plastic bottles.

Seven Coke employees assisted first the students earlier this fall to alter the first step of barrels into recycling bins and since then, the students have been working on the barrels on their own.

As of now, almost 20 of the barrels have been placed on campus and another 25 just about to be done.

The barrels supplement the blue bins are used continuously.

Krenzer hopes that by the time the project is completed to have at least one recycling container in every building on both campuses. Students appreciate having a place where to put their empty bottles and cans because the containers have been piling up.

Campus dorm representatives also established their own recycling containers last summer.

With Coke’s support, Krenzer expects the former five-year project to be finished by the end of this semester, a year after it has started.

Earth First Aid Curbside Recycling Service is in a contract with the university to empty the bins while Allied Waste also had a recycling bin at the Science Building to collect paper, aluminum cans and newspapers. Besides picking up the materials, Allied Waste donates the money they collect from recycling the waste back to the environmental club.

Students are thinking of what to do next after that one environmentally friendly project enfolds.

Rodriguez hopes to organize a contest during spring semester for people working in different buildings on campus to compete and see who can lower energy consumption the most.