Dear Massachusetts voters:
Having volunteered for Democrat hopefuls for Governor (be it Coakley, Dr. Berwick or Grossman), we must always move forward.
As winter approaches, I share this video of Dahl Winters. She discusses
@ the following YouTube video link:
In the above video, she discusses the efficiency of different solar panels, Winters explain pn-junctions, a subject which C. Julian Chen devotes an entire chapter of his textbook, Physics of Solar Energy.
Muhammad Alam is a leading professor in solar, but I cannot walk you through his mathematics. Aside from teaching the math, Muhammad (Praise Be Unto Him!) recommends government incentives, such as tax breaks, for developers of solar energy,
Rockport and Gardner are Massachusetts towns/cities which have wind turbines, but more energy will come if a wind farm gets completed offshore down Cape Cod.
A hurdle to wind power is that Massachusetts public libraries and commercial bookstores do not shelve any textbook on wind power for the general public to browse. Any textbook in the Harvard Coop’s textbook section, which cords off people, will not have copies lying around for a reader to inspect nor buy. Private higher education has become so elite that us not enrolled in the private university may not even touch whatever textbooks the university requires of its science students.
The Coop does not list MIT and Harvard textbooks by course title, but encrypts requests for textbooks by course number.
Harvard purports itself as a campus open to tourists, but its Coop bookstore does not invite Muggles to buy the science textbooks that its science and engineering students read and use.
I pray that I may tell you more of Mukund R. Patel’s textbook, if I buy it this Friday for my own birthday.
Renewable energy integrates old and new science. Solar requires us to look back to thermodynamics, such as the Carnot heat engine, as well as Maxwell’s Equations, which correct Ampere’s Law and discuss Gauss’ Laws.
Chen reminds us of the enduring damage that an exploded nuclear power plant marks on land (Chernobyl). He also shares the higher trigonometry that factors in the azimuth, zenith and other positional aspects of our sun. He considers the implications of where solar panels face, such as when mounted on a home’s roof.
The math he unfolds is exponentially more difficult than all we need for a standard college physics textbook, such as of either Paul Tipler or Douglas Giancoli, where we rather enjoy calculating simple products; point mass times rigid body’s acceleration being mechanical force in Newtons, for example.
That math governing renewable energy is difficult and elusive to my average mind. I tutor in an after-school program, hoping that I fish for students with cognitive gifts more than my own, so that they for themselves may master the sequences of equations which account for electrons’ junction current and other quantifiable properties.
Sincerely Yours,
Ramuel M. Raagas
(508)494-8763
_Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy_ by John Perlin
Novato, CA: New World Library, 2013
ISBN 978-1-60868-132-7
This is a great history of the human use of sunlight. My notes are online at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2014/11/let-it-shine-6000-year-story-of-solar.html
And here are two local events on Thursday that can give you a practical perspective on the possibilities of non-Koch Bros energy:
Lessons From The Cuban Energy Revolution
Thursday, November 13
7:00pm – 8:30pm
First Church in Jamaica Plain Unitarian Universalist, 6 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain
Mario Alberto Arrasta Avila
What can we learn from Cuba? When nearly 70% of Cuba’s oil supply stopped in 1989 after the USSR collapsed, transportation, electricity, and food production were jeopardized. Cuba responded by shifting to widespread use of renewables and permaculture-based agriculture systems, making the country a world leader in sustainable development.
Join us in welcoming Cuba’s leading Energy Efficiency and Renewables educator, Mario Alberto Arrastía Avila. Mario is responsible for the development and delivery of energy education at all levels in Cuba, and is a passionate and engaging speaker.
Come along to hear about Cuba’s “Energy Revolution” and what Massachusetts can learn from it.
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Community Shared Solar and Virtual Net Metering
Thursday, November 13
Doors open at 7:00 p.m.; Presentation begins at 7:30 p.m
First Parish in Cambridge Unitarian Universalist; 3 Church Street, Harvard Square
Community Solar provides access to solar power for those who cannot install a photovoltaic system on their rooftop. By virtual net metering, energy produced in one location can be credited to a ratepayer in another place. This concept, currently available to the nearly 80% of Massachusetts customers who would like to go solar, but cannot, represents an opportunity to greatly expand renewable energy in our electric system.
Development of community solar is growing, but recent proposed legislation (Bill 4185) threatened to limit its use by restricting its application and benefits. With solar energy beginning to gain a visible foothold, as well as fostering job growth, should we turn away from successful policy now?
Malcolm Bliss, Regional Outreach Manager at Next Step Living, will introduce us to community solar and provide thoughts on how we can support its potential at the November Boston Area Solar Energy Association Forum.
Boston Area Solar Energy Association: http://www.basea.org
I don’t think it was that long ago that you could just wander around the third floor where the textbooks were on sale. I think there were a couple short periods a year when they roped off the area to accommodate returns or the rush at the beginning of the year, or something like that.
Seems odd that Harvard would put the course lectures online, and then hide the books.