Climate Change Pertaining to Engineering

 Our Place in Nature has been making me contemplate how climate change will impact my future career, and for my particular field of work, the connection is easy to make. My field of study is aerospace engineering, where climate change not only is a concern, but it can be a primary objective for designs. Energy efficiency is a major focus for aerospace engineers when designing a new product, such as a rocket. A rocket requires an immense amount of initial thrust to leave the ground and escape the atmosphere, which, as recent studies have begun to show, could potentially be partially responsible for climate change. According to The Aerospace Corporation, hydrocarbon-fueled rockets release black carbon into the atmosphere, which efficiently absorbs the sun's visible light. An estimate shows that this black carbon could be a major problem as the industry continues to grow and transportation to space evolves. When all emission sources are considered, it may be second in heating the atmosphere only to carbon dioxide, which absorbs the sun's infrared light.

However, as I am beginning to learn in thermodynamics, this task may not be so simple. According to the second law of thermodynamics, a machine that does work, such as a heat engine or a heat pump, needs two thermal reservoirs in order to operate. One of them provides heat to the machine, and then the machine rejects a certain percentage in the form of waste energy to another reservoir. By this definition, energy will always be wasted, and many times, it is a large percentage that make it tough for many machines to crack above 50 percent efficiency. Even if all processes happening in the machine are reversible, meaning the engine is idealistic (Carnot engine), its efficiency depends on the quality of the thermal energy reservoirs that it is taking from and rejecting to. As ideas grow, people are trying to find smart ways to recycle or conserve much of the energy that is wasted from combustion engines.

Thompson & Stouffer, 2015

Engineers have to balance the energy that a system could provide with the costs that it would take to install it. For example, building a system in an ocean that connects the hot reservoir (surface) with a cold reservoir (deep water) to produce work would have extremely low efficiency, and the install costs would be too great to be practical. Luckily, the rise of large-scale computers that can calculate at high speeds and simulate relevant processes related to emissions has made costs decrease significantly for designers. Electric powered On-demand Aviation (ODA) sounds very promising with its environmentally clean and safe transportation powered by rechargeable batteries. When comparing its greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity with that of conventional jet fuel, ODA shows to be approximately equal to or slightly greater than that of conventional fuels, but if ODA energy intensities were greater than estimated, then the GHG intensity could be about 20% lower (Thompson & Stouffer, 2015). Looking at the sources themselves, nonrenewable sources are estimated to have a much higher GHG intensity than any other type, which is not shocking. Its ability to generate power is a hurdle that designers are still trying to overcome.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

World Meteorological Organization Headquarters

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a global organization that organizes and analyses the science related to climate change. It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and it's designed to give policymakers regular information on the scientific basis on climate change, it impacts, future risks, and options for adaptation. The IPCC works to collect a wide variety and balance of sources and interpret what the information means for the decision-makers. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the IPCC, and it aims to review materials extensively while reflecting a large range of views and expertise. When reports are analyzed, there are three different stipulations that the group looks at: approval, adoption, and acceptance. It does not conduct its own research. All countries who are a part of the WMO and the UN are open to membership, and there are currently 195 nations that are members.

IPCC Meeting 2014

The panel organizes many events and meetings with other groups every year in order to make sure that its members are all on the same page of the issue. For example, on December 7, 2015, the IPCC gathered with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the UNIESCO Headquarters in Paris. The purpose of this event was to simply allocate methods of reaching out to the public and raising awareness on climate change.

As far as students who who may want to become involved with this organizations, it seems that all members who are involved with the IPCC are either scientists or policy-makers, so getting involved as a student may be difficult. Anybody who registers for the events are experts in the field, and I am not entirely sure that a simply concerned person would be able to involve themselves with the IPCC.

Computer Games: Power Up and Recycle This

I apologize for the late post, but I guess I missed the assignment. Anyway, I explored a few climate change related games that NASA has made on its website. Many of them are quite simple and not quite as in-depth as I was hoping, but I feel like the real draw of these mini games is their addictive quality and educational value. While they seem to target a younger demographic, I feel that this is a very smart choice to make; these kids who stumble upon or take part in these games may have the thought of the existing threat ingrained in their minds, and it may be more likely to stay there permanently. This is similar to learning a new language.

One of those games is called Power Up, and I would say that it is more reaction and reflex-based than most of the other ones, but it is quite addictive, and I could easily see younger kids getting hooked to it. In the game, the player controls a solar panel on the ground that can move left and right, as well as a wind turbine that can move up and down. Players use the arrow keys, to control these movements. Clouds appear to create patches of shadow that players have to avoid in order to collect the most amount of sunlight. Simultaneously, regions of wind will pass from left to right or vice versa, and players must move the turbine up and down accordingly to generate the most wind energy. A time limit helps determine if you get a bronze star, and silver star or a gold star. I loved how simple the controls and concept was. One of the problems with the game, in my opinion, is that it is not challenging enough to keep me engaged for long periods of time. There are simple mobile games that have become addictive addictive simply because of their challenging objectives or the monotony of how long they go on. Even on the hardest difficulty, I can complete the game with a gold star without hardly any practice.

The other game that I tried out was called Recycle This, which, as you probably guessed, has players operating recycle and trash bins. Random bits of trash will fall, and the player has four possible to which the food can be tossed to: paper, glass, plastic, and metal. What is great about this game is that it subconsciously teaches the players about which trash belongs in which bin. Now I suppose you could say that this is common knowledge, but not everyone pays attention to what gets thrown into its proper disposal. All of the games that I found have relatively simple objectives associated with them. They are a resource for teachers in middle schools, certainly. Here is the full games list.