Hydroelectric Power

Hydroelectric power works by storing a lot of water behind a dam. The water is put through the dam and it pushes a turbine (a big fan thingy) and that turns a generator. The generator generates electircity and the water leaves the dam to join its natural stream that its suppolsed to be in, instead of being in a big dam or reservour. In the U.S. only about 12 percent of our energy comes from hydropower. Over the entire world hydroelectric power supplies 20% of all energy and that number is riseing! In Canada they use 70% hydropower. They are the world leaders in hydroelectric power, next being Austria at 67%. One of the advantavges to hydroelectric power is that it takes no fuel to run. Fossil fuels aren't used to produce hydroelectric power (unless you count the construction of the dam and repairs, but it makes up for that eventually). Also the dams are automated so that they dont require many people around to function. The dams also create reservours that can be used for recreation and that becomes a tourist thing, which leads to $$. Some of the disadvantages include: the need for irrigation is often greater than the need for power, and that can cause problems. Also The dams can disrupt the aquatic life and mess with things like the salmon's rush up stream to get to breeding grounds, but there is a lot of research going into more animal-friendly dams. Also the water that leaves the dam has little sediment in it, which can lead to the defertalization of areas, as well as the destruction of deltas and the like. the water that leaves the dam is also colder than how it was before the dam was built and that can endanger species.

my info and my pictures came from this site http://ga.water.usgs.gov/ I also used http://www.answers.com/topic/hydroelectricity

Computer Waste

Imagine how much the manufactoring of this computer wastes

OMG! computers use up soooooo much more waste than i had ever figured, or cared to think about. The construction of the parts is so wasteful. The computer chips are made in 400 steps each of which use up resources and create waste. First silicon is mined from Washington. Then it's bathed in hydrocloric acid, and hydrogen fumes to create a pure silicon rod. Then its cut up into super timy little strips and cleaned in acid, and heated to form a sheilding of silicon dioxide. Then these super high-energy machines cut the little circut paths into the silicon and plant phosphorous and boron. Then a lot of other stuff happens like copper being applied, ect. the end result is a little chip whose creation used up 2800 gallons of water and created 89 pounds of waste. Total a 55 pound computer uses 7300 gallons of water, 2300 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and creates 139 pounds of waste. The worst part is that if the factories upgraded their machinery to be state-of-the-art, or just at least what they make in the factories then this process could be done with half to a quater of the resources and create half to three fourths of the waste. I find it idiotic that they dont upgrade. The cost of upgrading would eventually be made up by the lowered amount of energy and water in the process.

Scientific Method

The scientific method really is a way for scientists to organize their experiments, and of course something for students to learn about and get bored by. It's not neccisary for an experiment. If you dont follow the scientific method the experiment wont preform any differently, your data will just be less organized. The steps are as simple as "look at something happening" then "figure out what you think will happen if you mess with whatever it is that's happening" then "make an experiment where you mess with whatevers happening in one way, be able to view whatever your testing on" then "execute your experiment and see if anything is different, and if it is then compare it to whatever is happening in it natural order" then "record you findings and tell other people". Your hypothesis is just your deciding what you think will happen based on previously known facts, when you tweek something out of its natural order. A theory is a way of describing how things work, like a diagram/text book thingy. a scientific law is a statement that something happens like gravity and is explained by a theory.
The two sites we looked at took, what appear to be, very different stances on the scientific method. The wikipedia one told the much more known variation of the scientific method being used for one experiment with the end result being to publish your results. It's version was more for the one time scientist that is just messing around, or a kid doing something in a science fair/school project. The other site's scientific method was probably more accurate for scientist's whose jobs are to discover stuff and do serious science. It said the final two steps were to use your information to predict other phenominon (or however you spell it) and then to have other independant scientists repeat the experiment. It is difficult to determine which site is more beleavable because in their own ways they are more beleavable than the other. For instance the wikipedia one uses lots of examples and is more "common man" friendly (which can lead some to finding the site more beleavable). The other one sounds a lot smarter and that can go a long way to convincing someone of its validity (mighta spelled that wrong). So its difficult to say which is more beleavable.

Gir rules!!!

Moon Hoax

Unfortunatly, there are only two ways to truly know if something is true. One is to be there and witness events or actions first hand or experiment to find your answer. The other is basically the same as the first, and that is to get your information through a device incapable of lieing, like an uncompromised computer (this is really only necissary for subatomic reactions, insanely huge math calculations, maps of the galaxy, ect.) In reality we can't actually trust anyone (I know I sound paranoid, but its true). People always lie and decive, they may not think they are but if they get their info from a bad source, or misunderstand data then they are essentially lieing. No one really likes to be fooled, it makes you look like an idiot. Also people hate it when a lie is told, especially if they belive that lie and fight in defense of it, i know i hate looking like an idiot in front of peers when i defend a lie. Any lie really will anger most people, unless they have a really good sense of humor and they don'd defend it full on and look like an ass. The film Dark Side of the Moon is a good example of this, by the end of the film it becomes obvious that its a joke and there are no hard feelings. Well, you dont like being fooled, but at least nothing bad comes of it. Anyways they kinda hinted at it being a joke during most of the movie. For one the proposed CIA leader guy wasn't speaking english. Also you never heard the questions, and the interviews were edited. Near the end it became much more obvious though. The guy that was "burned to death in a car accident" looked unscathed and there were a bunch of santas around him. And the guy that was suppolsedly cut up into little pieces and that was a suicide. How is that even possable?!?!? What are you going to do, chop off your arm then give the severed arm the machete, hatchet, surgical saw, butcher knife, sword, axe, sawblade, cleaver, ect. and have it chop you up then throw itself into a meat grinder? Or are you just going to jump into a meat grinder and get squeezed into the creepy intestine resembling tendrels of meat? That was really the bit that sealed the deal of "This movie is a joke" for me. I was pritty sure that it was fake, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I thought that other than to make a point this film was fairly pointless. It was boring and serious, but still not educational at all and its only concievable porpuse was to make a point. It would've been fairly easy to believe had I not been granting a slight fraction of my attention to the movie (in my defense it was really boring, and i was really tired, and i didn't have a pillow to sit on). Some of the points that were made seemed factually sound and convincing. The only part that i really could've beleaved was when they talked about the cameras and the flag and the footprints on the moon.

Footprints 1

The footprints of many people differ. My footprint is different than others. Mine is calculated by power consumption, the foods I eat, and the waste that follows. In a normal day I use coal power to power my house. The lights I use, the heating of my house, the computer I am typing on is also sucking in power. The average day of my life puts smog and the like into the air, from coal use. The foods I eat also cause problems. For one, almost all of the foods that stay in my house, as well as most other homes, has been packaged. Whether that packaging is individual, or a big bag it still gets thrown away and causes more problems. Another problem is that foods that aren't consumed are usually thrown away as well. Many people will throw away their foods and then it goes to the landfiland rots releasing its internal carbon dioxide contaminating more of the air. My family trys to throw out old foods into our backyard so that the wildlife around my house can eat it and keep it from going to waste. Old bread is thrown by the birds. Meat scraps are thrown to the coyotes. Old fruits and vegatables are givin to my iguana. Other food leftovers that cannot be disposed of by the surronding wildlife, like seafood remains, are sadly thrown away to be stuffed into a landfill. Another problem that I cause is that my family and I add lead and other metals to the environment through guns. We will often go target shooting. We will spend some days shooting clay pidgeons and shooting soda cans, bottle caps, or just random stuff around the area. The bullets contain lead and other metals which leak out and poison the surrounding area. The clay pidgeons break, and will sometimes biodegrate, and other times won't. Also the car we use to carry the guns and get to the places we shoot uses up a lot of gas (unfortunitly we only get about 9 miles to the gallon). We have two other cars that we use most of the time and the 9mpg truck is almost never used. The other cars have better gas milage, but still release carbon dioxide (or is it monoxide i can never remember, but I will continue to call it carbon dioxide) into the air, and use up natural resources. Our small jeep is used by my dad to get to his various job sites and runs most of the day. The other car is used for trips, driving into school, getting groceries, ect. Our ditbikes, snowmobiles, and speed boat also use up gas and release carbon dioxide. Odds are good that my footprint and my families footprint is fairly large, but what are we going to do about it? There's really not much that we can do to change that fact. The human race is in decline. We are going to burn out our resources, kill ourselves and many other species while we're at it, but eventually nature will right itself and hopefully another species like us will never evolve on this or any other planet. So lets just hope we are all dead before we run out because thats going to be one horrible horrible place, and we're to blame because of our large impact and mindless onward march to destruction. =)