BACHELOR OF APPLIED TECHNOLOGY

SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGIES

APTE 6104

COURSE LECTURER : RASHIKA SHARMA & MARY PANKO

NAME : HABIL BIN HAMIDON

STUDENT ID : 1482311

DATE : 1 SEPTEMBER 2017

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 INDEX

Case Description.

 Understanding of the case. Page 3

 History pf power plant and impacts. Page 3-4

Technology Description.

 Hydroelectric. Page 5
 Solar power station. Page 6
 Wind power. Page 7

Quadruple Bottom Line.

 Governance. Page 8-10

 Environment. Page 10-11
 Social. Page 12
 Economic. Page 13

Advantages and Disadvantages. Page 13-14

Future Impact. Page 15-18

Conclusion. Page 19

Referencing. Page 20

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 CASE DESCRIPTION

 UNDERSTANDING OF THE CASE

Every building, houses and even the roads need electricity to generate
human needs in daily life. Where the electricity come from? The power
plants. Every country has their own power plant to generates electricity for
curtain cities but there are advantages and disadvantages regarding power
plant stations. For decades engineers try to solve the disadvantages for a
power plant station to generate electricity such as chemical waste, air
pollution, sound pollution and more. Back in the days, non-renewable
energy sources are being used to generates electricity but using non-
renewable energy sources such as natural gases, petroleum, coals and more
will leads into two things. First, the natural sources will be running out
from the earth due to massive used years by years and secondly, those non-
renewable resources will produce harmful gases and being released in the
atmosphere with harmful to the green house, ozone layers and us, humans.
Advance technologies are used nowadays to generate electricity with more
efficiency and recycle sources to reduce the effect on green house and
ozone layers.

 HISTORY OF POWER PLANT AND ITS IMPACTS.

It all start in 2000 BC; the first energy source was used by the Chinese was
coal. Coal was at that point being singed there for warming and cooking,
and had been so utilized for up to 4000 years. Moreover, in early medieval
Europe, the presence of coal was no mystery, however the 'dark stone' was

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viewed as a second rate fuel since it created so much residue and smoke.
Accordingly, until the 13th century, it was overlooked for wood.

As wood deficiencies showed up, destitute individuals started warming

their homes by consuming coal.

In 200 BC; Natural gas has been used as the main energy source by the
Chinese. The first practical used of natural gas in this era. From brine in
gas-fired evaporators to produce salt, boring shallow wells and conveying
the gas to the evaporators through bamboo pipes.

In the same era, the Europeans manage to create harness water energy to
power mills. By the end of the Roman era, water mills are used for a lot
functions such as crushing grains, iron shaping, smelt and more industrial
purposes. With good water-power resources, it will become the centre of
economic and industrial activities. (History of Alternative Energy and
Fossil Fuels, 2013)

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 In the 1st century, Chinese has found
another new energy source which is
petroleum, oil. In the northwest of china
back more than 2000 years ago, our
ancestors discovered oil seepages in
many places. During this era,
petroleum is used for lamps, lubrications
and military purposes. Similar
technology being used back in the 200
BC used to produced salt.

Figure 1 William Sugg. (2014).

In the 10th century, windmills are built in Persia

for crushing grain and pumping water. The main
purpose of the windmills is to grind corn and
pumping water from the river for gardening.

Figure 2 Dutch windmill at

Kinderdijk. (2009).

In 1600s, coke was found. Roasting process used to make charcoal to

adjusted to coal in result of “coke” are used due to create high point for

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burning fuel called coke. In 17th century, coke is used for industrial
purposes for in iron and steel production in England.

In 1700s, coal starts to replace other type of other energies. In the 18 th

century, coal was introduced widely to the industries. Coal was widely
used for mechanical power by using the new methods for other effective
way which is the steam engines. Steam engine used coal to produce steam
to generates the output for the machine.

Holborn Viaduct power station, named the

Edison Electric Light Station was the world’s
first coal-fired power station. This power
station was built in London by Thomas
Edison.

Figure 3 Holborn Viaduct power station.

(Wikipedia, 2017).

In late 1880’s, the War of Current was evented.

During this year scientist and engineers fought each
other regarding AC current and DC current. The
inventor of DC power generator, Thomas Edison,
lost the battle due to the founder AC power
generator created by George Westinghouse. People
claimed that AC powered generator are more
Figure 4 Thomas Edison, founder
of Edison Electric Light.
(Wikipedia, 2017).

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 sufficient and can provide electricity much further than Thomas Edison’s
DC power generator.

1860, the first solar power system was

developed in France. The solar power is
used to produce steam to drive
machinery. The main reason why the
solar power was created because they
were worried due running out of fuel,
petroleum, which being used to
Figure 5 Engraving of Mouchot's Solar Power. (2009).
generate system and run the mechanism.
The mirror used for the technology helps him to developed the first sun motor.

In 1862, the Civil War broke up. Abraham Lincoln authorizes an ethanol duty to
help back the Civil War, seriously hampering the ethanol fuel industry. Due to
Abraham Lincoln’s strategy to finance the war, fuel ethanol and industries was
gone for 45 years.

1876, the first demonstration Selenium Solar Cell. In this year, the first machine
where it can generate electric energy by using the sunlight as the source and
convert it into electricity by the selenium solar cell. This technology was
discovered by William Grylls Adams and Richard Evnas Day, when they found
that electric current can be create inside the selenium cells by exposed it to the
sunlight.

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Figure 6 Sketch of Pearl Station in New
York. (Wikipedia, 2017).
4th of September 1882, the first electric power plant
was created by Thomass Edison in New York.
Thomas Edison build the first electric power plant
near by the Wall Street. In the 18th century
reciprocating steam engine has been used to generate
machinal power build by James Watt in 1882. The
first power stations were built at Pearl Street Station
in New York and Holborn Viaduct power station in
London. Those power station are powered was
powered by steam engines.

30th September 1882, the first hydroelectric plant was developed in Appleton,
Wisconsin. The hydroelectric plant was created to initially light up three building
was attracted to one residence and two paper mills to generate electricity. The
programs was rapid, in 1882 a second dynamo was purchased and being placed
on 25th November 1883.

In 1884, steam turbine was being built to provide larger and more efficient
machine to generate electricity. After around 1905, steam engines were
considered an effective way to generate electricity and turbines completely
replaced reciprocating engines in large power plant.

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 1888, the first windmill was created in Cleveland,
Ohio. The windmills were built to purposely
generates electricity. Created by Charles F. Brush.

Figure 7 Brush Windmill. (2009).

1921, world’s first geothermal power plant was built. The geothermal power plant
was built in California. The purpose of the power plant is the light up The Geysers
resort by drilling geothermal well and ran a small direct-current (DC) generator.
In that time, the cost and material used from drilling geothermal steam are
expensive and it was discontinued due to high cost to keep it running.

1942, first federal law was established to control pollution created from the oil
industries. Oil Pollution Control Act was introduced by the federal government.
It was the first serious attempt to deal with national scale until the incident Santa
Barbara in 1969 cause by massive oil spilled into the ocean.

1973, OPEC Oil Embrago againtys the United

States cause gas shortages and rotioning. In
October 1973 the war between Arab and Isriel,
the Arab members of the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countires (OPEC) declared
a ban against the United States because of the
U.S. choice to re-supply the Israeli military amid
Figure 8 Oil Shortage in U.S. (2009).
the war.

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4th August 1977, Department of Energy
Organization Act was sign. The Nation suffered
the most severe winter in the history due to
natural gas shortage caused thousands factory
and school forced to be shut down. President
Carter signed an agreement where more than 30
separate energy functions must be carried out by
other government agencies, including Energy Figure 9 President Carter signing the
Department of Energy Organization Act.
Research and Development Administration (2009).

(ERDA).

1978, they introduced the first solar powered village in Tohono O’odham
Reservation located in Arizona. The solar power helps the village to pump water
and light up 15 homes until 1983 when the power grid reaches the village.

1980, world’s first wind farm was built in New Hampshire up to 20 wind turbines
were built.

1981, Solar One was built. Located in

Daggett, California, Solar One is
world’s biggest thermal power station
were built. There were 1818 mirrors
where installed in the power plant to
extract heat and convert it into electric
energy.

Figure 10 Solar One. (2009).

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1981, the construction begins for
world’s largest wind power station
located in California. The Altamont
wind farm consists of 4,800 wind
turbines to generates electricity.
Figure 11 Altamont Wind Farm. (2009).

April 1996, project Solar Two was

made. Solar Two and Solar One have
the same functionality where they both
collect thermal energy from the heat of
the sunlight to convert it into electric
energy but Solar Two will reduce the
cost or in other word low cost method
Figure 12 Solar Two. (2009).
of storing solar energy. Solar Two
manage to generate electricity during night time or whenever the sun wasn’t
shinning using two large silver salt tanks for storing energy.

17th February 2009, the agreement on

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In
the agreement include billions in energy
investment including loan guarantees and grants
for developing new renewable energy
technologies.

Figure 13 The president of United States, Barack

Obama, signing the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009.

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25th June 2013, increasing use of renewable energy and carbon pollution
restrictions for power plant. The president of the United States, Barack Obama,
issuing his climate action plan to complete carbon pollution standards for both
old and new existing power plant. The Environmental Protection Agency has to
take action of reducing the amount of pollution created by the power plant.

2nd June 2014, EPA has made the first ever rules regarding reducing carbon
emission from existing power plant. The Environment Agency proposed a new
rule where coal power plant must reduce carbon dioxide up to 30% by 2030.

3rd August 2015, Barack Obama, the president of the United States, announces
clean power plan nationwide limits. EPA set their first-ever limits where power
plants requiring a 32% cut in emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels. The
administration’s plan will force the industries to a cleaner-burning method.

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 TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION.

In this century, most electricity is produced by renewable energy sources such as

wind energy, hydro energy, solar energy and more.

 Hydroelectric power station.

In a hydroelectricity power station,

electricity is generated by using the
gravitational momentum of the water fall
through the penstocks to the water
turbines which connected to the
generators.
Figure 14 Three Gorges Dam, China. (Wikipedia, 2017).

The water will be forcing to enter the

sluice gates. Due to gravitational
momentum of the water fall, the
water will be pressurised though the
penstock and hit the turbines blades
Figure 15 Hydroelectric Diagram. (Logoysk, n.d.). with high pressure. The turbines will turn
the generator and convert the kinetic energy into electric
energy. The water later goes through downstream outlet.

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  Solar power station.

Solar energy can be turn into electric

directly in solar cells, or focusing on
heat energy and convert the heat
energy to electricity. The photovoltaic
power plant convert sunlight into
direct current using the photoelectric
effect. The inverters change the direct

Figure 16 Nellis Solar Power Plant, US. (Wikipedia, 2017).

current into alternative current flow
and sent to the power grid.

Figure 17 How solar power generates electricity.

(Wikipedia, 2017).

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  Wind Power.

Wind turbines can also be used to

generate electricity in areas with
strong winds as example Texas
and sometimes wind turbines are
placed in offshores. Basically,
wind turbines used kinetic energy
to generates electricity. The wind
Figure 18 Wind Turbines in Texas. (Wikipedia, 2017). rotates the pillars. The pillars
turns can create a kinetic energy. The kinetic energy later will be converted
into electricity by a converter.

1. The wind blows and hit the windmill’s turbines.

2. The windmill turbines will rotate and create kinetic energy.
3. The kinetic energy will spin the generator and create an electricity.
4. The electricity will increase by transformer.
5. From the generator will send the electricity to the distribution
lines.

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 QUADRUPLE BOTTOM LINE.

 Governance

Coal Power Plant - The impact on the governance for using coal power
station to generate electricity will be cost to maintain the coal power station
running. The transportation of coal from the coal mine to the power plant
will take a huge amount of money and many workers need to be hired to
run the coal power plant.

Figure 19 Coal transportation by trucks. (Slideshare. n.d.).

Figure 20 Coal transport by train. (Frienghtliner. n.d.).

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 Hydroelectric Power Station – The cost to build a dam will take a huge
amount of money as well and took longer time to complete the project.

As example, Hoover Dam took

five years to build from April
20, 1931 to May 29, 1936.
21,000 men worked on the dam
with an average 3,500 to 5,128
workers worked daily. The
average monthly payroll can
reach up to $500,000.
Figure 21 Hoover Dam. (Reclaimation, 2015).

Solar power station – The government must hire workers to monitor the
solar power station. The generator for the solar power plant can easily
overload and trip off. The cost
to fix the problem will be
expensive. The cost for the solar
penal will be expensive as well.
A huge area of empty land is
required to build a solar power
plant.
Figure 22 Solar plant in California. (Mic. 2014).

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 Wind power station –
Transportation and cost. Other
than cost, transportation for the
windmill will expensive.

Figure 23 Windmill being transport by trucks

 Environment

Coal power plant will give a huge impact on environment. Coal power
plant will release a huge number of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
This will lead to the damaging the ozone layer of making a huge ‘hole’ in
the ozone layer. Thus, it also effects the greenhouse.

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Hydroelectric station – Hydroelectric doesn’t pollute the air or water.
However, hydropower facilities can have a huge environmental impact by
changing the environment and affecting land use, homes and natural
habitats in the dam area.

Solar power plant – Solar power plant will affect four things. Land, water,
hazardous materials and life recycle global warming. Depending on
location, larger facilities of solar power station will require a huge amount
of land and this leads to loss of animal habitats. Concentrating solar thermal
plants (CSP) required water for cooling tower withdraw between 600 to
650 gallons of water. Hazardous material is used in the process of cleaning
and purifying the surface of the solar panels. Hazardous material used I
solar power plant are hydraulic acid, sulphuric acid, nitric acid and more.
Finally, life recycling global warming. Solar power plant collects huge
amount of sunlight and heat as well. The perimeter around the solar power
plant will dry due to excessive amount of heat and the temperature will be
increase.

Wind power – Windmills will affect the land use and natural habitat.
Windmills are located on flat land and used huge amount of space
compares to windmills on the hills. Normally the windmills must be spaced
approximately 5 to 10 rotors away with
each other. Wildlife and habitats, mostly
effect birds and bats due to collusion with
the windmills turbines and due to change
of air pressure cause by the rotation of the
windmill turbines.

Figure 24 Windmill affect to wildlife

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 Social

Coal power plant – Coal power plant released huge amount of harmful
gases into the atmosphere such as Carbon Dioxide, Sulphur Dioxide,
Nitrogen oxide, Mercury and more. People who work in the coal power
plant will inhale these harmful gases daily and this will affect their health.
Not just the workers, the citizen around the coal power plant will also
inhale the me harmful gases as well.

Hydroelectric – Hydroelectric station doesn’t give huge impact on the

society. Hydroelectric station is usually located far from the cities and
houses.

Solar power plant – Solar power plant effect the surrounding area. Solar
power basically collecting huge amount of sunlight and these leads to heat
as well. A huge parameter around the solar power plant will suffer dry
climate and extreme global warming. The water will dry up and will affect
the marine life.

Wind power – Sound and visual impact are the two main public health and
community concerns associated operating windmill’s turbine. Sound
created by the turbines when the aerodynamic of the turbine blades spins.
Other than that, the mechanical sound created by the turbines itself effect
the public health. Under curtain lighting condition, wind turbines can
create known as shadow flicker. Shadow flicker effect the visual of a
person when the eyeballs pupil enlarges and reduce it size continuously.
The vibration creates by the windmill itself affect the citizen as well when
the turbines spins.

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 Economic.

Wind power, solar power plant and hydroelectric station have similar
characteristic which they have renewable energy. Coal power plant
basically using nature material which is charcoal. All of them are expensive
to be made but maintaining coal power plant will be more expensive.
Charcoal need to be transport from the quarry either by truck or by train.
Meanwhile hydroelectric used the gravitational momentum of the
waterfall, solar power plant use sunlight as their main source to generates
electricity and wind power used wind to rotate the turbines. Other than that,
to keep the coal power plant running, huge number of workers need to be
hire. Half of the team will be assign on the quarry side to dig out the
charcoal from the earth and other half will be assign at the coal power plant.
The government must pay extra for the coal power plant to minimize the
harmful gases produce from the coal power plant itself. Inspection must be
made every month so that the coal power plant can maintain the pollution
created from the power plant itself.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES.

Coal power plant have its advantages and disadvantages if it is used for
generating electricity. The advantage of using charcoal as main source used
to generates electricity is generating with stable output. Charcoal can easily
be found and can be used and predict how much charcoal needed per-day
to generate electricity. The disadvantages are cost of transporting the
charcoal from the quarry to the power plant will be expensive. Pollutions,
coal power plant produce creates different types of harmful gases which
affect the greenhouse, ozone layer and acid rain.

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Hydroelectric station, the advantage is hydroelectric input, water flow, is
continuously constant. Electricity can easily be create using hydroelectric
station. The disadvantages are take long time to build one station,
expensive to build and affect natural habitats due to water increase.

For solar power plant, the advantage is solar power plant have constant
input and output to generate electricity. The disadvantages are solar power
station hard to maintain and chemical liquid are used to clean the solar
penal surface. Solar penal also required large area to build solar power
plant and expensive to build. The solar power plant will also effect the
temperature around the solar power plant area.

Lastly, wind power. Wind power advantage is not that expensive to build
and the process of generating electricity are easy and simple. The
disadvantages are depending on the speed of the wind. Other than that,
windmill required large area to make. Transportation to deliver the
windmill will be expensive due to huge pieces of windmill need to be
transport.

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 FUTURE IMPACT.

So far there are no future technologies or prototype being held to make the
generate electricity better than using renewable energy as what we have
now. But in sector of environment, earth is still having problem with
unhealthy environment due to excessive amount of Carbon Dioxide
Created by the factories and vehicles in the world.

Factories should stop using fire as their heating elements because to create
fire, natural source still being used and creates huge amount of Carbon
Dioxide.

Some factories are using a method called “Induction heating” where

induction heating replacing fuel heating elements as we can see in the
industrial today.

This is one of the example of

steel hardening method used
decades ago. This steel
hardening method used fire
as heating elements for
increase the steel toughness.

Figure 25 Fire used as heating element in industrial work.

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This is the new technology in steel
industries. Same method as before by using
heat energy to increase the steel toughness.
Instead of fire as the heat source, this
technology used AC power supply act as a
magnetic field to create heat.

Figure 26 Magnetic field used as heating

element.

AC power supplied is used to generate the magnetic field. The AC power

supply will be conduct to the metal coil. From the metal coil, magnetic
field will generate heat.

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Vehicle are made since 1800’s. Back in the days, vehicles are used as a
transportation from point A to point B. Vehicle create huge amount of
Carbon Dioxide. A typical vehicle emits about 4.7 metric tons of Carbon
Dioxide. Vehicles purposes
change years after years.
Nowadays vehicles are used in
different type of purposes such as
performance car, off road
vehicles, commercial vehicles
and more. Even with the hybrid
technology for a vehicle, it still consumes engine running with fuel. This
means that carbon dioxide still being produced.

An automotive manufacturer called Tesla Motors located in California

manage to solve the emission problem. Tesla Motors build a vehicle where
running on 100% electric. Tesla is one of the fastest electric vehicle ever
build in history of automotive.

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 Figure 28 shows the chassis of the Tesla with no engine required.

Figure 27 shows Tesla cars can be charge.

This can reduce huge amount of Carbon Dioxide and helps the greenhouse
effects and ozone layers.

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 CONCLUSION.

The amount of harmful gases released by the coal power plant which are
harmful for human to inhale. Many harmful gases such as sulphur dioxide,
nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and mercury being release to the air
which damage the greenhouse effect, ozone layer and to human as well.
Based on investigation by Greenpeace International stated that nitrogen
oxides are greenhouse gases, but these harmful gas effect also react with
organic compounds to form smog which harmful to human health. Smog
can cause lung damage, asthma and more. Particulate matter is a small
particle created by the emission of burning from coal power plant. These
small particle is a tiny unburned pollution particle released directly from
the smokestacks cause estimated 800,000 premature death each year.
Union of Concerned Scientists stated that the benefits of renewable energy
used manage to improve public health and environmental quality. Wind,
solar and hydroelectric systems generate electricity with no associated air
pollutions while geothermal and biomass energy system emits some air
pollution but not as bad as coal power plant.

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 REFERENCE

References

Greenpeace. (2016). Air pollution from coal power plants. Retrieved from
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/coal/Coal-plants-pollute-
the-air/

Union of Concerned Scientists. (2013). Coal power. Retrieved from http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-

energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/coal-air-pollution#.WalBa8gjFPY

Union of Concerned Scientists. (2013). Benefits of Renewable Energy Used. Retrieved from
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/public-benefits-of-renewable-
power#.WakW2MgjFPY

Wikipedia. (2017). Friction welding. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friction_welding

Wikipedia. (2017). Induction heating. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_heating

Union of Concerned Scientists. (2013). Environmental effect of wind power. Retrieved from
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/environmental-impacts-wind-power#bf-
toc-0

Union of Concerned Scientists. (2013). Environmental impact of hydroelectric. Retrieved from

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/environmental-
impacts-hydroelectric-power.html#.WalCKcgjFPY

Union of Concerned Scientists. (2013). Environmental impact of solar power. Retrieved from
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/environmental-
impacts-solar-power.html#.WalCbMgjFPY

References
History of Alternative Energy and Fossil Fuels. (2013, 6 13). Retrieved from ProCon.org:
https://alternativeenergy.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000015

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