Your Questions About Sustainable Energy Definition
Daniel asks…
Does nasa understand stars enough to attempt to create them in labs?
I’m guessing not, but the idea behind my question was if we could produce stars we could manipulate them for energy and possibly redirect their energy to move spacecraft at speeds close to if not as fast as the speed of light. What do you guys think?
admin answers:
Humans are making progress in creating sustainable fusion reactions (fusion is what fuels stars), but such a reaction could only be called a “star” in a figurative sense. It wouldn’t fit our definition of “star”.
Fusion has not yet become economical for electrical energy production and the ultimate goal of astronautical fusion based propulsion should be the creation of a ship which electrically charges ions using fusion (engine that uses charged particles for propulsion is known as either a plasma engine or ion drive), but it isn’t beyond our means to create a spacecraft with the raw power of fusion. The idea was thought up decades ago and is called Project Orion.
The idea behind Project Orion is to propel a spacecraft forward by detonating hydrogen bombs behind it. A large plate would be used to both protect the ship from the blast and catch the energy of the bomb, thus pushing the ship forward. Orion could feasibly propel itself so quickly that it could actually make it to Proxima Centauri (the closest star to Sol) in one human lifetime! The ship would have to be very large and thus it wouldn’t be practical to build it today, but it may be possible to blast the ship into orbit using its own propulsion system. The catch is that the ship propelling itself into orbit entails detonating many many nuclear warheads in Earth’s atmosphere, which is bad. Science preserve us if the ship and it’s stock of nuclear bombs crashes while lifting off. 🙁
P.S. – It is impossible to move a massive object faster than light. 😛
Charles asks…
What are the implications of green chemistry?
Hello, I got an assignment to do on green chemistry and there’s this part asking about the implications of green chemistry. Can you please help me out?
admin answers:
Here is Cal Berkeley’s (GO BEARS!!) definition
I am a Cal grad
http://bcgc.berkeley.edu/newchem
Green chemistry is the design, production and use of chemical products that:
Utilize sustainable raw materials completely and efficiently
Minimizes waste and energy consumption in product production
Creates useful and long-lasting products
Produces products that are environmentally benign through recycling or natural degradation
Sustainability is achieved by stressing chemical efficiency throughout the life cycle of chemical products, from inception to disposal.
Driving Research
From designing nanostructured solar cells to the production of new cancer fighting drugs, all chemical design, production and use can benefit from the application of the basic principles of sustainability and green chemistry. Chemists and chemical engineers realize the importance of sustainable design principles and are the key player who can effectively use green chemistry principles to address the challenges presented by resource shortages, chemical waste and toxicity, and climate change.
Training Leaders
Our goal is to bring about a generational transformation in society’s production and use of chemicals and chemical products, We have a unique opportunity to teach societies’ future leaders to think about critical new technologies and to advance the principles of green chemistry and sustainability because more than half of all Berkeley undergraduates take at least one laboratory chemistry course. If other universities and colleges follow Berkeley’s lead, in another generation the principles and practices of green chemistry will be second nature to chemical industry practitioners, chemists and chemical engineers, regulators and policy makers, and to educators.
Transforming Curriculum
To meet the demands of 21st Century education, we are redesigning and rebuilding our undergraduate chemistry and chemical engineering teaching labs. This effort is fully integrated with changes in our curriculum to communicate the fundamentals of laboratory science- including the principles and practice of green chemistry- while including topical applications that demonstrate the central role of molecular thinking in virtually every scientific discipline. As a result of these efforts, the College of Chemistry will remain a national role for safe, sustainable, efficient, and inspiring laboratory education for decades to come.
Innovating Responsibly
With a growing world population, and with standards of living rising in many formerly poor countries, the demand for chemical products will continue to skyrocket. Using today’s technologies, it is becoming difficult to meet this demand while protecting human health and the world’s environment. The way forward is to advance new research methods and capabilities that build sustainability into chemical design processes from their inception, and to create new chemical technologies that minimize environmental and public health problems while producing the products that society demands.
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