WIND POWERED ENERGY & ROBOTICS
Texas is known for many things, its famous rodeos, the Texas State Fair, or the Cowboys who roamed the wild west. According to American Wind Energy Association's 2012 marketing report “Texas is also largest wind power producer in United States, creating 8.3% of the electricity created in the state of Texas.” Texas created over 35,000 Gigawatts of electricity in the year 2013 alone. What should this mean to you?
The VEX battery pack that every BEST team uses is a 3000 mAh or 7.2 Volts, according to VEX robotics. If the state of Texas decided that wind energy that was created was solely to be used by BEST robotics teams that reside in the state of texas, then each hub would be able to charge 242 million VEX batteries. Then if each hub consisted of twenty four teams each team could recharge their battery 1 million times. If a team decides to charge their batteries forty two time in a season, once every day during the season, the team could participate in 238,095 season, assuming your batteries never wear down or go bad. That is a lot of students that could be inspired to join a STEM related field and all this energy would be off a single year collection of wind energy.
Windmills have been around for along time. Daniel Halladay in 1854 is credited
with having designed the first commercially successful new windmill in the New World (Baker). His windmill had a self-governing design. This means that it automatically turned to face changing wind directions and that it automatically controlled its own speed of operation. Windmills found on farms most often were used for water pumping and also for grinding grain into meal or flour. Wind was a prime farm energy source before rural electrification and gasoline-powered water pumps. Now the circle has come full turn, and wind is again providing vital support for rural communities, this time as a generator of electricity for sale to energy – hungry cities and industries (Voldgade).
As humans beings we are becoming more power hungry for energy to run our multitude of devices and to help power our cities, advancing windmill technology is becoming crucial so that we can keep up with energy demands that are being presented. With wind being present everywhere around the world, from the cascading mountain ranges across the United States to the windy offshore island and shores of the United States, one idea is to feed off the strong winds by building offshore windmills. The windmills would have to be changed very little, one example is the nacelle would need a dehumidified, so technology is already present.(Hugo 2003)
The reason why offshore is so ideal is that there is a high wind resource “(typically 40% more energy content in the wind compared to onshore); relatively lower foundation and grid costs; and reduced visual impact on the landscape per unit of installed power.” (Gipe 2003) Demand for more power output drives the trend towards larger machines while research and development is increasingly expensive and complex as turbines increase in size and use more advanced technology, while yet new models are released with increasing frequency. (Michael 2005)
Wind power offers a unique and readily available energy source that is naturally created. It is an inexhaustible resources on our planet that allows for a high output of energy to be created and it can decrease our dependency on fossil fuels and exhaustible resources. Although we still have a long way to go, wind power seems to be the way of the future.
Work Cited:
The VEX battery pack that every BEST team uses is a 3000 mAh or 7.2 Volts, according to VEX robotics. If the state of Texas decided that wind energy that was created was solely to be used by BEST robotics teams that reside in the state of texas, then each hub would be able to charge 242 million VEX batteries. Then if each hub consisted of twenty four teams each team could recharge their battery 1 million times. If a team decides to charge their batteries forty two time in a season, once every day during the season, the team could participate in 238,095 season, assuming your batteries never wear down or go bad. That is a lot of students that could be inspired to join a STEM related field and all this energy would be off a single year collection of wind energy.
Windmills have been around for along time. Daniel Halladay in 1854 is credited
with having designed the first commercially successful new windmill in the New World (Baker). His windmill had a self-governing design. This means that it automatically turned to face changing wind directions and that it automatically controlled its own speed of operation. Windmills found on farms most often were used for water pumping and also for grinding grain into meal or flour. Wind was a prime farm energy source before rural electrification and gasoline-powered water pumps. Now the circle has come full turn, and wind is again providing vital support for rural communities, this time as a generator of electricity for sale to energy – hungry cities and industries (Voldgade).
As humans beings we are becoming more power hungry for energy to run our multitude of devices and to help power our cities, advancing windmill technology is becoming crucial so that we can keep up with energy demands that are being presented. With wind being present everywhere around the world, from the cascading mountain ranges across the United States to the windy offshore island and shores of the United States, one idea is to feed off the strong winds by building offshore windmills. The windmills would have to be changed very little, one example is the nacelle would need a dehumidified, so technology is already present.(Hugo 2003)
The reason why offshore is so ideal is that there is a high wind resource “(typically 40% more energy content in the wind compared to onshore); relatively lower foundation and grid costs; and reduced visual impact on the landscape per unit of installed power.” (Gipe 2003) Demand for more power output drives the trend towards larger machines while research and development is increasingly expensive and complex as turbines increase in size and use more advanced technology, while yet new models are released with increasing frequency. (Michael 2005)
Wind power offers a unique and readily available energy source that is naturally created. It is an inexhaustible resources on our planet that allows for a high output of energy to be created and it can decrease our dependency on fossil fuels and exhaustible resources. Although we still have a long way to go, wind power seems to be the way of the future.
Work Cited:
- "American wind power reacheds major power generation milestones in 2013". AWEA. Retrieved 10 October 2014
- Hugo, C. EWEA (2003), “Wind Energy - The Facts” website, Available: http://www.ewea.org/06projects_events/proj_WEfacts.htm
- Voldgade, V. (2002) “Employment in the Wind Power Industry”, Article ,Windpower Notes, March 23, 1996, No. 2., pages 1-8. Available: http://www.windpower.org/en/news/articles, 10/03/05