Rolling Blackouts & Environmental Impact — What are our Electricity Options?

In this month's activity, Rolling Blackouts and Environmental Impact, students explore the environmental considerations required when designing a new power plant to increase electricity generation capacity. The electric power that we use every day at home and at work is generated by a variety of power plants. Power plants are engineered to utilize the conversion of one form of energy to another. The main components of a power plant are an input source of energy that is used to turn large turbines, and a method to convert the turbine rotation into electricity. The input sources of energy include fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) wind, water, nuclear materials, and refuse. This activity asks students to research how much energy can be converted to electricity from many of these input sources in order to determine what the best new power plant for their town would be. They also consider the impact of the by-products associated with using these natural resources, and examine electricity requirements for their towns. To do this the students will research and evaluate the electricity needs of their community, the available local resources for generating electricity, and the impact of using those resources.

In the United States, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) provides accreditation for engineering programs to ensure they all meet an established level of quality standards. For information on ABET accredited institutions, visit the Accreditation and Curricula page on the Engineering Pathway. ABET has an accredited programs search database on their website.

The American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Engineering K12 Center provides a few additional resources for students exploring engineering at the college level including information on careers in The Engineering Alphabet, information on finding the right school, and an engineering college search database.

The Engineering Pathway Portal to the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) brings together quality engineering education materials for from all over the internet allowing teachers to search all of these documents in a single location. Each month during the year in the Pre-Engineering Times, the Engineering Pathway highlights one or more engineering activities available on the collection related to the month's theme. This month's activity is from the TeachEngineering Digital Library, which is a part of the Engineering Pathway.