Embodied energy is the sum of all the energy required to produce any consumer goods or services. How much embodied energy is hidden in our day-to-day lives?
Embodied energy is the energy that is consumed in order to build a given usable object. This includes the energy from material extraction, refining (Verfeinerung), processing, transporting and fabricating. It is named as such because it is as if this energy is "embodied" within the item itself. Embodied energy also comes along with idea of embodied carbon, which is the associated (zugehörig) CO2 footprint that is emitted (ausstossen) during the objects creation.
Embodied energy is found within all types of objects, including things like cell phones, appliances (Haushaltsgeräte), homes, buildings and furniture. The embodied energy of a given object can be analyzed by knowing what materials are contained within an object, and how much of that given material there is. The amount of energy needed to produce a certain material such as aluminum, steel or concrete (Beton) is known and can be used to calculate the embodied energy within an item.
Examples of embodied energy:
Video about embodied energy:
Embodied Energy - What's that?
Our Audio Pitch:
Soil.m4a (549,72 kb)
Picture and Text Sources:
Embodied Energy 1 [energyeducation.ca]
Embodied Energy 2 [nxtgenhouses.com]
Authors:
Anabel & Sandrine
Bioethanol
Bioethanol is a technical alcohol which is produced by biological waste products. It is a colorless and flammable liquid. It belongs to the alcohols and is containes in alcoholic drinks such as beer, wine and liqueurs.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Bioethanol, also known as E85, is an alternative fuel that can be produced independently of crude oil. E85 is the short form for 85 % bioethanol and 15 % gasoline content.
Advantages
- Bioethanol has an increase in performance of up to 35 %
- Costs are 30 % lower than for petrol
- A renewable source of energy
- etc.
Disadvantages
- Starting a car in cold weather could be more difficult than a car that runs on petrol
- During production a large amount of carbon dioxide is released
- Implementing more biothanol would require modifications to many vehicles
- etc.
Link to our Sway: Sway
Made by Daniel & Sandrine
An LED-lamp with 6 watt, which is used for 750 hours per year, consumes 4,5 kWh.
6W x 750 hours = 4500 Watthours / 1000 = 4,5 kWh
An LED-TV with 100 watt, which is used for 1000 hours per year, consumes 100 kWh.
100W x 1000 hours = 100'000 Watthours / 1000 = 100 kWh
A vacuum cleaner (Staubsauger) with 1400 watt, which is used for 50 hours per year, consumes 70 kWh.
1400W x 50 hours = 70'000 Watthours / 1000 = 70 kWh
An electric bicycle with 500 watt, which is used for 100 hours per year, consumes 50 kWh.
500W x 100 hours = 50'000 Watthours / 1000 = 50 kWh.
This is the calculation:
Watt x Hours = Consumption of Electricity in Watthours / 1000 = Consumption of Electricity in kWh
Well, we can tell you that is not absolutely true. The grass is greener where it gets water. But it does not only depend on the water, it depends a lot on the soil. More specifically on soil water interactions. It's also named soil-water processes.
Have you ever heard about the "hydrologic cycle"?
An important question that we asked each other was; what are soil-water processes? Well, we are going to explain it to you.
When it's raining, the water arrives on the soil surface. Then a lot of things can happen to that water. Either the water will enter the soil by infiltration or it will stay on the surface and form puddles if it cannot infiltrate. Once water has entered the soil, it will spread out and move in different directions. This is called redistribution and involves percolation (downward movement) and capillarity (this is sideways and upward movement).
The function of storage is an important soil-water process. It makes the water available for uptake by plant roots and evaporation. Then the water gets into the soil but it's not stored there.
But why are these soil-water processes so important?
Plants need water, air and nutrients. Water movements through soil is what allows there to be air exchange in the soil too and it delivers the nutrients which plants need and get mostly by their roots.
More...
Our heating source at home is oil heating. It says that oil heating is the most climate-damaging form of heating. However, according to the Federal Statistical Office in Switzerland there are still 39.4 % of households used oil as their main energy source for heating their buildings (2017). Compared to the years 2000 (57.8 %) and 1990 (60.9 %) there is now less oil heating used as heating source than 20 years ago.
This is how my heating source looks like:
Another heating source had incredibly increased: The heat pump. In the last 20 years it had an increase of about 15 % (from 2 % to 17.9 %).
How does oil heating work?
When the oil heats, it moves from the tank to the burner through a pump, and it becomes a warm mist mixed with the air. The fuel and air mix go into the burner, where it creates flames in the combustion chamber. The oil heats the air or water that heats your home, depending on the type of heating system you have.
Source: Energy field [bfs.admin.ch]
Source: Sperr's Fuel and Heating [sperrs.com]
What WWTP (Waste Water Treatment Plant = Kläranlage) is cleaning your personal waste water?
I live in small village called Sulzbach. It belongs to the city Uster. In Uster, the Waste Water Treatment Plant is named Jungholz and is located in the district Niederuster. The WWTP Jungholz is responsible for Uster and Greifensee.
What is its dimension?
The WWTP Jungholz is responsible for ca. 35'000 inhabitants of Uster and for ca. 5'000 inhabitants of Greifensee.
Where is it located (map link)?
It is located in the district Niederuster. The adress is Seestrasse 171, 8610 Uster. WWTP Uster/Niederuster on Search map
How does it look like?
Anabel and I found an amazing article on global warming. Since it is a very long article, we decided to split the work between the two of us. I am going to talk about communication of facts and causes. Anabel will write about the effects and measures.
Global warming
Global warming is the phenomenon of increasing average air temperatures of the earth. Since the middle of the 20th century, climate scientists have gathered (zusammentragen, sammeln) detailed observations of various weather phenomena and of related influences on climate.
Facts
The global warming: Increase in the global average surface temperature resulting from enhancement of the greenhouse effect, primarily by air pollution.
Many scientists predict that such an increase of the temperature would cause polar ice caps (Eisschicht) and mountain glaciers to melt rapidly significantly raising the levels of coastal waters (Küstengewässer) and would produce extremes of drought (Dürre) and rainfall, seriously disrupting (beeinträchtigen) food production in certain regions.
Causes
A special report noting that human beings and human activities have been responsible for a worldwide average temperature increase of between 0.8 and 1.2 °C of global warming since preindustrial times, and most of the warming observed over the second half of the 20th century could be attributed to human activities.
The predicted rise in temperature was based on a range of possible scenarios that accounted for future greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation (Eindämmung, Minderung) (severty reduction) (Armutsreduzierung) measures and on uncertainties.
Effects
- Significant societal, economic and ecological damage.
- Should carbon emissions continue at their present rate, the increase in average near-surface air temperatures would reach 1.5 °C sometime between 2030 and 2052.
Measures
- By 2015 all but a few national governments had begun the process of instituting carbon reduction plans as a part of the Paris Agreement.
- A rapid transition away from fossil fuel energy.
If you are interested in reading the whole article, here goes to the Article (britannica.com).
Finally! My final project is online on Don't waste my energy!
Please go and check out my post (click the link below) about the production and transport of cheap clothes, if you are interested.
https://dontwastemy.energy/2021/07/15/let-me-take-you-…rney-of-textiles/
I am very excited to share my experience and results with you. The whole process was a great learning experience. I hope you will enjoy reading my project.
Don't forget to leave a comment. :)
Thank you and kind regards,
Sandrine
Today I did the self-assessment for thursday 13th of july 2021 and I got 18 points in total. I did not understand the meaning of EVERY question but I tried my best. I also was not sure about the answers I gave. Sometimes it was an answer between the given ones, like it was not a no but also not a yes. I hope I did it correctly.
I also did the checklist for the website in the OneNote. I am not sure if I filled it out correctly but I tried. I think my teacher will tell me if something is wrong.
It is planned that our final results will be posted this week on thursday the 15th of july 2021. I am excited to publish the final project and share my experience with people who are interested in this topic. This week I am going to do a final check of my text before it will be published. I also let my brother do a review, to see if there are still some mistakes I have not seen yet, which I will correct before the publishing.
Working on this project showed me, how big the part of the environment problem is caused by the clothing production. Nearly everybody who works in the clothing industry knows about these problems but no one is doing anything about it. Many stores are trying to sell their clothes as cheap as possible and hope that many customers are buying their clothes. In order to the cheap production, they can sell their products cheaper than stores, which have a sustainable production. It is sad to see, that most of the people in the world do not care about this problem. I think, if there were more people who would be interested in helping our environment and would be ready to change this part of their lifestyle related to buying clothes, we could make a huge change.
Otherwise the working process was very difficult for me in the beginning. Firstly, my team partner left school, so I had to continue with the project on my own. Then not even one of the ten clothing stores in Switzerland I firstly asked for an interview were ready to support me with my project and last but no least two of my three collaboration teams finished their project and their school without doing any collaboration with me. But in the end I had a great collaboration with India and I could finally finish my project.