New interactive tool for exploring future U.S. energy-use scenarios

Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy released an interactive online tool “to help researchers, educators, and students explore future U.S. energy-use scenarios.” The Buildings Industry Transportation Electricity Scenarios (BITES) Tool is a scenario-based tool for analyzing how changes in energy demand and supply by economic sector can impact carbon dioxide emissions.

This web-based tool can be used in the middle and high school classroom to enable students to manipulate inputs, such as energy sources used for electricity generation and transportation fuel use, and to compare outputs and impacts on carbon dioxide emissions and the U.S. energy mix to the year 2050. Output data are made available in graphic form giving your students exposure to interpreting graphs.

To get started, watch the 4 minute intro video on the BITES website and then view scenarios that have already been created or, after a quick registration process, you can start building your own scenario.  A good starting point would be to show your students either the 2010 or 2011 Annual Energy Outlook (U.S. Energy Information Administration) base case.  By not making any changes to the inputs for this base scenario, the outputs will reflect current projections for the “business as usual” scenario. From here students can create their own scenarios, making modifications to one or more economic sectors and then comparing outputs to those of the base case.

Educator resources, including a tutorial and an online learning module are going to be available soon.

The BITES team is very interested in feedback, suggestions and lesson plans developed using the BITES tool! Please consider providing feedback on ways to improve the website and interface as well as sharing the lessons you build around using the BITES Tool. Feedback can be sent to bites@nrel.gov.

 

An All-Electric Vehicle: Up Close and Personal (Video)

The Dean of Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, Bill Chameides, recently drove a Nissan Leaf with one of the Department of Energy’s car specialists and created a 6:44 minute video about it. This electric car gets 99 miles “per gallon equivalent” and zero emissions are generated by the vehicle during use but the video does a good job of reminding the viewer that there is a power plant behind the scene generating electricity (and thus emissions) to charge the battery.  Get an up close look at the two charge ports found at the front of the vehicle: a DC Fast Charge Port and a Standard Charge Port.  The video highlights other features the car has that are designed to increase its efficiency, including aerodynamic design and low-rolling resistance tires.

 

Energy Literacy Framework Released

As part of an effort to improve energy education for individuals and communities, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently released Energy Literacy Essential Principles and Fundamental Concepts, a downloadable, 20-page pdf intended to provide “a framework for energy education for learners of all ages.”

This framework seeks to improve Americans’ understanding of energy, energy sources, generation, use, and conservation strategies. This knowledge will allow for informed decision making on topics ranging from smart energy use at home to consumer choices to national energy policy.

The framework identifies 7 Essential Principles with each Essential Principle supported by six to eight Fundamental Concepts.  The Fundamental Concepts are “intended to be unpacked and applied as appropriate for the learning audience and setting.”

Click here for more information.

Myths and Facts About Electricity in the U.S. South

In December 2011, Marilyn Brown from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, along with co-authors from the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University released a paper titled Myths and Facts About Electricity in the U.S. South.  In this publication, the authors identify six myths about clean electricity in the southern United States and in doing so identify “new starting points for energy policy development” by evaluating these myths in the context of future energy policy scenarios.

One myth that is examined that is also of significance to helping today’s learners more critically evaluate future energy options is myth#6, which states that “power resource decisions have little impact on water resources.” The paper cites that 54% of freshwater withdrawals in the South are for thermoelectric generation; thus, water conservation through energy planning is significant for this region.  The paper describes the disconnect that often exists between a state’s energy planning and water conservation policies citing that “energy impacts on water usage is often ignored.” While recognizing that knowledge of this connection may not alter decision-making associated with power generation, the authors cite that the connection should not be ignored in light of growing populations and shrinking water resources.   This is just the kind of connection I want today’s students to be able to make!

It would be interesting to ask your students to examine their own myths around energy consumption; I am willing to bet that most students operate under the assumption that their energy consumption does not impact local water resources, for instance.  I imagine their myths would be very different from the ones identified in this paper; however, this exercise could serve to start a conversation about the myths and underlying belief systems that might be operating as future energy generation options as well as energy efficiency and conservation strategies are considered in your city or town.

The Department of Energy’s Quadrennial Technology Review Report

In fall of 2011, the Department of Energy released its Quadrennial Technology Review which had the goal of establishing “a framework for thinking clearly about a necessary transformation of the Nation’s energy system.” The report outlines six strategies for addressing the nation’s energy security, economic competitiveness and environmental impacts of energy: increase vehicle efficiency, electrify the vehicle fleet, deploy alternative hydrocarbon fuels, increase building and industrial efficiency, modernize the grid, and deploy clean electricity. A 3- minute video summarizing the six strategies outlined in the QTR is available.   The report provides and up-to-date overview of “today’s energy landscape” and energy challenges and describes and prioritizes the technology adoption and innovation that will support each strategy.

Light pollution, energy waste, and our vanishing night

Is your town wasting energy by sending it right into outer space?

To follow-up on the Earth at Night post from earlier this month, I asked Amy Sayle, PhD, from UNC’s Morehead Planetarium and Science Center to share resources for introducing students to light pollution as well as the solutions that exist to minimize light pollution:

At live star shows at Morehead Planetarium in Chapel Hill, people often gasp when the Milky Way appears. Many students visiting on school field trips have seen this hazy band of starlight only in our simulated sky, because light pollution has made the night sky vanish where they live.  The main culprit? Poorly designed lighting. The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), offers a downloadable fact sheet that could be used to introduce your students to the topic of light pollution.

Unshielded lights fail to direct light only where it’s needed and as a result billions of dollars are wasted every year in the United States on such unnecessary lighting. In this brochure about light pollution and energy, the IDA estimates the wasted energy at 22,000 gigawatt-hours a year, or the equivalent of more than 450 million gallons of gasoline.  All that misdirected light doesn’t even enhance our safety. The things we’d like to see outdoors after dark, such as roads, sidewalks, and muggers are all found on the ground, not in the sky. Furthermore, glare sent into our eyes by unshielded lights is actually counter-productive for safety.

By using well-designed, pedestrian friendly lighting such as the shielded fixture illustrated below, we not only save energy, we also enhance our safety, and protect the night sky, wildlife, and even human health.

You can engage your students on this issue with the GLOBE at Night citizen science project, IDA lesson plans and student projects, or with the 2011 documentary The City Dark.

Students could also investigate how lighting in their community might be improved, or perhaps is already being improved by city officials, so that stargazing no longer happens for them only at the planetarium.

An example of a pedestrian friendly light fixture that prevents light pollution.

The Role of Light in my Life: A Student Journaling Activity

According to the US Department of Energy, lighting accounts for about 11 percent of energy use in residential buildings and 25 percent in commercial buildings!  For incandescent bulbs, only about 10 percent of the electricity consumed by the bulb is actually converted into light! Thus, inefficient lighting coupled with wasteful consumer behavior means a lot of energy is wasted in lighting our homes, schools, and businesses.

This homework activity is designed to get your students thinking about the role of lighting in their daily life and how the use of lighting impacts the environment through electricity generation, the materials used to produce lighting products, and even its impact on the nighttime sky (light pollution).

1.  Ask your students to keep a 24 hour journal documenting their use of and reliance on light at home, school, work, extracurricular activities etc. Hopefully they will also consider street lights, stop lights, and other outdoor lights.  All of this lighting requires electricity and in NC, most of the electricity is going to come from coal-fired and nuclear power plants.

2. At the end of the 24 hours ask student to reflect on how the use of indoor and outdoor lighting impacts the environment through  electricity generation, the materials used to produce lighting products, and its impact on the nighttime sky (light pollution).

3.  Next ask students to envision or even draw/diagram an imaginary day in which the amount of energy consumed by lighting their environment is reduced.  Prompt students to consider how changes in their behavior as well changes to light bulbs, lighting fixtures and design, etc. can reduce the amount of energy consumed by lighting.   Strategies for reducing energy consumption can include more efficient bulbs (CFLs and LEDs), appropriate use of bulbs and lighting fixtures, use of day lighting, as well as conservation behaviors by consumers.

Home Lighting Audit from GE

GE’s Bringing Choices to Light curriculum includes one lesson in which students  take an inventory of the light bulbs inside and outside their homes. Using an inventory worksheet (see page 17 of this pdf), students can easily take inventory and then calculate  any cost-savings associated with switching any existing incandescent light bulbs with comparable wattage of CFLs.  For advanced inquiry, you could have students calculate cost savings associated with replacing bulbs with comparable wattage LED bulbs.

You can also direct your students to this quick CFL energy savings calculator that will calculate an estimated cost savings from switching any existing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs of comparable wattage.

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA)

New lighting standards, which phase in from 2012-2014, do not ban incandescent or any specific bulb type; they require that certain bulbs use about 25% less energy. The bipartisan Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) established these efficiency standards and you can read more about these new standards and how they will be phased in on the Department of Energy’s website.

Activity: Comparing the Energy-related Properties of Incandescent and CFL Bulbs

The NEED Project has an activity titled Facts of Light that has students compare the energy-related properties of different types of light bulbs that have equivalent light outputs.  The goals of the activity are:

- To compare the heat output of incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs.

- To compare the light output of incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs.

- To compare the energy consumption of incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs.

- To develop an awareness and understanding of life cycle cost analysis.

Facts of Light is available for students in grades 6-8 in NEED’s curriculum Monitoring and Mentoring Teacher Guide and Student Guide

and for students in grades 9-12 in NEED’s curriculum Learning and Conserving Teacher Guide and Student Guide.

Asking students to conduct these same activities with an equivalent light emitting diodes (LED) bulb is a possible extension.  At a minimum students could do a life cycle cost analysis for LED bulbs.