Monday 26 March 2012

ENERGY - Alternate Fuels/ appropriate technology

Alternative fuels, known as non-conventional or advanced fuels, are any materials or substances that can be used as fuels, other than conventional fuels. Conventional fuels include: fossil fuels (petroleum (oil), coal, propane, and natural gas), as well as nuclear materials such as uranium and thorium, as well as artificial radioisotope fuels that are made in nuclear reactors, and store their energy.
Some well-known alternative fuels include biodiesel, bioalcohol (methanol, ethanol, butanol), chemically stored electricity (batteries and fuel cells), hydrogen, non-fossil methane, non-fossil natural gas, vegetable oil, and other biomass sources.

Traditional vehicle fuels petrol and diesel are, of course, produced from oil, whereas alternative fuels come from a variety of sources. Oil has a couple of key disadvantages, not least the fact that it is in limited supply and takes millions of years to be produced. There are also environmental considerations as fossil fuels release large amounts of harmful greenhouse gases. It is therefore important to look at alternative fuel today in order to better protect the environment and to replace the diminishing oil supplies.

Alternative fuel covers a number of options which are listed below and more details on which can be found on other pages of this site. Most of the options for alternative fuels are not derived from fossil fuels.

Biodiesel - Produced from the oil of crops such as rapeseed or from waste cooking oils. This results in a significant reduction in carbon emissions.

Bioethanol - Produced from starch plants such as corn, sugar plants or trees.

Biogas - A mixture of methane and carbon dioxide from landfill sites or produced using anaerobic digestion. This results in a 60% reduction in carbon emissions.

Fuel cell - A fuel cell uses hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity.

LPG - A blend of propane and butane produced from oil refining and methane gas fields. This has slightly higher carbon emissions than diesel but 80% lower nitrous oxide emissions.

Natural Gas - Mainly methane extracted from oil and gas fields. This has a 5% reduction in carbon emissions compared to diesel and 80% lower nitrous oxide emissions.

Pure Plant Oil - produced by crushing and filtering crops such as rapeseed. It is thought that carbon emissions from well to wheel will be slightly lower than those for diesel.




Appropriate technology is an ideological movement (and its manifestations) originally articulated as "intermediate technology" by the economist Dr. Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher in his influential work, Small is Beautiful. Though the nuances of appropriate technology vary between fields and applications, it is generally recognized as encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally controlled. Both Schumacher and many modern-day proponents of appropriate technology also emphasize the technology as people-centered.
Appropriate technology is most commonly discussed in its relationship to economic development and as an alternative to transfers of capital-intensive technology from industrialized nations to developing countries.
Appropriate technology has been used to address issues in a wide range of fields. Well-known examples of appropriate technology applications include: bike- and hand-powered water pumps (and other self-powered equipment), the universal nut sheller, self-contained solar-powered light bulbs and streetlights, and passive solar building designs. Today appropriate technology is often developed using open source principles, which have led to open-source appropriate technology (OSAT) and thus many of the plans of the technology can be freely found on the Internet.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES!
appropriate technology - brings technology to poor villages and can transform lives due to it being sustainable and no one needing to be dependent on lare companies

SOLAR ENERGY
WIND ENERGY

Thursday 22 March 2012

renewable and NON renewable resources

Powerpoint:
http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/science/energy/renewable.asp

PDF:
http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/science/energy/discovermore/renewable.pdf

What are the sources of energy?

Energy are broadly classifies into two main groups: renewable and Non-renewable.

Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is energy which is generated from natural sources i.e. sun, wind, rain, tides and can be generated again and again as and when required. They are available in plenty and by far most the cleanest sources of energy available on this planet. For eg: Energy that we receive from the sun can be used to generate electricity. Similarly, energy from wind, geothermal, biomass from plants, tides can be used this form of energy to another form.

Here are some of the pros and cons of using renewable sources of energy:-

Pros

The sun, wind, geothermal, ocean energy are available in the abundant quantity and free to use.
The non-renewable sources of energy that we are using are limited and are bound to expire one day.
Renewable sources have low carbon emissions, therefore they are considered as green and environment friendly.
Renewable helps in stimulating the economy and creating job opportunities. The money that is used to build these plants can provide jobs to thousands to lakhs of people.
You don't have to rely on any third country for the supply of renewable sources as in case of non-renewable sources.
Renewable sources can cost less than consuming the local electrical supply. In the long run, the prices of electricity are expected to soar since they are based on the prices of crude oil, so renewable sources can cut your electricity bills.
Various tax incentives in the form of tax waivers, credit deductions are available for individuals and businesses who want to go green.
Cons

It is not easy to set up a plant as the initial costs are quite steep.
Solar energy can be used during the day time and not during night or rainy season.
Geothermal energy which can be used to generate electricity has side effects too. It can bring toxic chemicals beneath the earth surface onto the top and can create environmental changes.
Hydroelectric provide pure form of energy but building dams across the river which is quite expensive can affect natural flow and affect wildlife.
To use wind energy, you have to rely on strong winds therefore you have to choose suitable site to operate them. Also, they can affect bird population as they are quite high.
Non-Renewable Energy

Non-Renewable energy is energy which is taken from the sources that are available on the earth in limited quantity and will vanish fifty-sixty years from now. Non-renewable sources are not environmental friendly and can have serious affect on our health. They are called non-renewable because they cannot be re-generated within a short span of time. Non-renewable sources exist in the form of fossil fuels, natural gas, oil and coal.

Here are some of the pros and cons of using non-renewable sources of energy:-

Pros

Non-renewable sources are cheap and easy to use. You can easily fill up your car tank and power your motor vehicle.
You can use small amount of nuclear energy to produce large amount of power.
Non-renewable have little or no competition at all. For eg: if you are driving a battery driven car your battery gets discharged then you won't be able to charge it in the middle if the road rather it is easy to find a gas pumping station.
They are considered as cheap when converting from one type of energy to another.
Cons

Non-renewable sources will expire some day and we have to us our endangered resources to create more non-renewable sources of energy.
The speed at which such resources are being utilized can have serious environmental changes.
Non-renewable sources release toxic gases in the air when burnt which are the major cause for global warming.
Since these sources are going to expire soon, prices of these sources are soaring day by day.
Why should we conserve energy?

Energy needs to be conserved to protect our environment from drastic changes, to save the depleting resources for our future generations. The rate at which the energy is being produced and consumed can damage our world in many ways. In other words, it helps us to save the environment. We can reduce those impacts by consuming less energy. The cost of energy is rising every year. It is important for us to realize how energy is useful to us and how can we avoid it getting wasted.

To start saving energy is not a big thing at all. We can start saving the energy from our home itself, just by turning off the lights during day hours, washing clothes in cold water or using public transport instead of using our own vehicle and later can implement these things on much wider scale at society level, then at city level then district level and finally at country level. You might notice a small change in your monthly bills by implementing these changes as they would be getting decreased more and more. With so many alternatives and so many techniques about there, if millions of people like us start doing these things, it will help us to save much more money and also help the environment.

A non-renewable resource is a natural resource which cannot be produced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate, once depleted there is no more available for future needs. Also considered non-renewable are resources that are consumed much faster than nature can create them. Fossil fuels (such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas), nuclear power (uranium) and certain aquifers are examples. In contrast, resources such as timber (when harvested sustainably) or metals (which can be recycled) are considered renewable resources.

Fossil fuel:

A temporary oil drilling rig in Western Australia
Further information: Oil depletion
Natural resources such as coal, petroleum (crude oil) and natural gas take thousands of years to form naturally and cannot be replaced as fast as they are being consumed. Eventually natural resources will become too costly to harvest and humanity will need to find other sources of energy.
At present, the main energy source used by humans are non-renewable fossil fuels, as a result of continual use since the first internal combustion engine in the 17th century, the fuel is still in high demand with conventional infrastructure and transport which are fitted with the combustion engine. The continual use of fossil fuels at the current rate will increase global warming and cause more severe climate change.

Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished). About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from hydroelectricity. New renewables (small hydro, modern biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, and biofuels) accounted for another 3% and are growing very rapidly. The share of renewables in electricity generation is around 19%, with 16% of global electricity coming from hydroelectricity and 3% from new renewables.

Renewable sources:
Wind power
Hydropower
Solar energy
Biomass
Biofuel
Geothermal energy

Monday 19 March 2012

transnational company, newly industralised country

NIC:
http://www.slideshare.net/guest0edc68/newly-industrialised-countries

TNC:
http://www.grips.ac.jp/csids/perspectives/perspective03.pdf

Thursday 15 March 2012

INC

Multinational Companies:

Head off - MEDC
Branch Plants - LEDC

ADVANTAGES:
no tarrifs
cheap labour
health and safety is lower
incentives
raw material

DISADVANTAGES:
language/ culture
time zones
exchange rates
amount of skilled labour
safety

Monday 12 March 2012

System of manufacturing

old system:
power supply - near by

new system:
power - national grid - plug in - socket (plug in)
FOOTLOOSE

PAGE 18C
1. metal, wheels, engine
2. due to high demand for resources and enables quicker production
b) due to low moving cost
c) so that they have room to produce the car and to expand
d) so that they get all areas of the production in the factory covered



HIGH TECH INDUSTRYS IN LEDC's

High Technology Industry

These icons indicate that teacher’s notes or useful web addresses are available in the Notes Page.

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For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started presentation.


What is high-tech industry?
Where does high-tech industry locate?
What factors influence the location of high-tech industry?
What is a science park?
What pressures are created by the growth of high-tech industry?


High-technology industry

High-technology industry involves a highly-skilled workforce and its products require a high proportion of research and development.

High-technology industry is relatively footloose since access to raw materials is not very important. The ‘raw materials’ that are required are usually lightweight electronic components.


What is high-tech industry?
Where does high-tech industry locate?
What factors influence the location of high-tech industry?
What is a science park?
What pressures are created by the growth of high-tech industry?



High-technology industry

Where does high-tech industry locate?

The largest concentration of high-tech industries is found in Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is the nickname for the high-tech heartland of the United States. It is located between San Francisco and San Jose, California.

M4 Corridor
Cambridge and the M11 corridor

Where does high-tech industry locate in the UK?

High-tech industry in the UK

What is high-tech industry?
Where does high-tech industry locate?
What factors influence the location of high-tech industry?
What is a science park?
What pressures are created by the growth of high-tech industry?


High-technology industry


Bangalore has been called the Silicon Valley of India. Over 160,000 people are currently employed in the technology sector and this number is expected to exceed 200,000 in 2005, which will rival Silicon Valley.

Electronics City in Bangalore is India’s first science park. It is home to about 100 companies including Siemens, Hewlett Packard and Motorola. Infoys was the first Indian firm to float on the US Stock Exchange.


What is high-tech industry?
Where does high-tech industry locate?
What factors influence the location of high-tech industry?
What is a science park?
What pressures are created by the growth of high-tech industry?


Learning objectives

High-technology industry

A science park is a planned industrial complex which contains quaternary companies while a business park can also contain manufacturing companies.

Business park

Science park

What is a science park?

Cambridge Science Park

What is high-tech industry?
Where does high-tech industry locate?
What factors influence the location of high-tech industry?
What is a science park?
What pressures are created by the growth of high-tech industry?


Learning objectives

High-technology industry

Trinity College
Local residents in Milton
Logatech (a small high-tech company)
Greenworld (an environmental group)
Local farmer

Trinity and Trinity Hall are planning to develop a 22 acre plot to the west of their site. It will attract further high-tech industries to the area.

What pressures do you think will be created as a result? Decide what the viewpoints of the following will be:

Growth of high-tech industry


Growth of high-tech industry

Trinity College expansion proposals

Using map information only, give three reasons why a science park located at site A.
List two other factors that influence the location of science parks.
There are proposals to create a new science park at site B. Explain why some people may be against its development.

Study the map.
Examination question


High-technology industry

High technology industry involves a highly-skilled workforce and its products require a high proportion of research and development.
The largest concentration of high-tech industries can be found in Silicon Valley, USA. In the UK, the M4 corridor is an attractive location for high-tech industry.
Bangalore is the centre of high-tech industry in India.
High technology industry is relatively footloose.
Factors behind location include: a highly-skilled workforce, proximity to research centres and attractive environments.
A science park is a planned industrial complex which contains quaternary companies such as Cambridge Science Park.
The growth of the high-tech industry can bring advantages and disadvantages.


High-tech sectors
The sector approach classifies industries according their technology intensity, product approach according to finished products.
Aerospace
Artificial Intelligence
Biotechnology
Software
Electrical Engineering
Photonics
Nanotechnology
Nuclear Physics
Robotics
Telecommunications
High-tech industries
Further analysis from OECD has indicated that using research intensity as an industry classification indicator is also possible. The OECD does not only take the manufacturing but also the usage rate of technology into account.




Monday 5 March 2012

Industry

Industrial sectors

Main article: Industrial organization
Further information: Industrial loan company


Clark's Sector Model (1950)
Farming- The secondary sector,involving refinery refining,construction,and manufacturing;The Tertiary sector,which deals with services (such as law and medicine) and distribution of manufactured goods;And the Quaternary sector, a relatively new type of knowledge industry focusing on technological R&D research,design and development such as computer programming, and biochemistry. A fifth, quinary, sector has been proposed encompassing nonprofit activities. The economy is also broadly separated into public sector and private sector, with industry generally categorized as private. Industries are also any business or manufacturing. Industries can be classified on the basis of raw materials, size and ownership.
Raw Materials: Industries may be agriculture based, Marine based, Mineral based, Forest based.
Size: It refers to the amount of capital invested, number of people employed and the volume of production.

Ownership: Industries can be classified into private sector, state owned or public sector, joint sector and co-operative sector
Industry in the sense of manufacturing became a key sector of production and labour in European and North American countries during the Industrial Revolution, which upset previous mercantile and feudal economies through many successive rapid advances in technology, such as the steel and coal production. It is aided by technological advances, and has continued to develop into new types and sectors to this day. Industrial countries then assumed a capitalist economic policy. Railroads and steam-powered ships began speedily establishing links with previously unreachable world markets, enabling private companies to develop to then-unheard of size and wealth. Following the Industrial Revolution, perhaps a third of the world's economic output is derived from manufacturing industries—more than agriculture's share.
Many developed countries and many developing/semi-developed countries (People's Republic of China, India etc.) depend significantly on industry. Industries, the countries they reside in, and the economies of those countries are interlinked in a complex web of interdependence.
Industry is divided into four sectors. They are:
Sector Definition
Primary This involves the extraction of resources directly from the Earth, this includes farming, mining and logging. They do not process the products at all. They send it off to factories to make a profit.
Secondary This group is involved in the processing products from primary industries. This includes all factories—those that refine metals, produce furniture, or pack farm products such as meat.
Tertiary This group is involved in the provision of services. They include teachers, managers and other service providers.
Quaternary This group is involved in the research of science and technology. They include scientists.
As a country develops people move away from the primary sector to secondary and then to tertiary.
There are many other different kinds of industries, and often organized into different classes or sectors by a variety of industrial classifications.
Industry classification systems used by the government[which?] commonly divide industry into three sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, and services. The primary sector of industry is agriculture, mining and raw material extraction. The secondary sector of industry is manufacturing. The tertiary sector of industry is service production. Sometimes, one talks about a quaternary sector of industry, consisting of intellectual services such as research and development (R&D).
Market-based classification systems such as the Global Industry Classification Standard and the Industry Classification Benchmark are used in finance and market research. These classification systems commonly divide industries according to similar functions and markets and identify businesses producing related products.
Industries can also be identified by product: chemical industry, petroleum industry, automotive industry, electronic industry, meatpacking industry, hospitality industry, food industry, fish industry, software industry, paper industry, entertainment industry, semiconductor industry, cultural industry, poverty industry
labor-intensive industry - capital-intensive industry
light industry - heavy industry

Declining industries

Main article: Deindustrialisation
Historically certain manufacturing industries have gone into a decline due to various economic factors, including the development of replacement technology or the loss of competitive advantage. An example of the former is the decline in carriage manufacturing when the automobile was mass-produced.
A recent trend has been the migration of prosperous, industrialized nations toward a post-industrial society. This is manifested by an increase in the service sector at the expense of manufacturing, and the development of an information-based economy, the so-called informational revolution. In a post-industrial society, manufacturing is relocated to economically more favourable locations through a process of off-shoring.
The major difficulty for people looking to measure manufacturing industries outputs and economic effect is finding a measurement which is stable historically. Traditionally, success has been measured in the number of jobs created. The lowering of employee numbers in the manufacturing sector has been assumed to be caused by a decline in the competitiveness of the sector. The truth however is that it has been caused by the introduction of the lean manufacturing process. Eventually, this will lead to competing product lines being managed by one of two people, as is already the case in the cigarette manufacturing industry.
Related to this change is the upgrading of the quality of the product being manufactured. While it is easy to produce a low tech, low skill product, the ability to manufacture high quality products is limited to companies with a high skilled staff.
[edit]Society

Main article: Industrial society
An industrial society can be defined in many ways. Today, industry is an important part of most societies and nations. A government must have some kind of industrial policy, regulating industrial placement, industrial pollution, financing and industrial labor.

Primary - Secondary - Tertiary

Thursday 1 March 2012

Overnutrition

Overnutrition is a form of malnutrition in which nutrients are oversupplied relative to the amounts required for normal growth, development, and metabolism. Overnutrition is a type of malnutrition where there are more nutrients than required for normal growth.
The term can refer to:
obesity, brought on by general overeating of foods high in caloric content, as well as:
the oversupply of a specific nutrient or categories of nutrients, such as mineral or vitamin poisoning, due to excessive intake of dietary supplements or foods high in nutrients (such as liver), or nutritional imbalances caused by various fad diets.
For mineral excess, see:
Iron poisoning, and
low sodium diet (excess sodium).