| Power Maker |
January 15, 2018
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| She was really worried about the environment. Every year she was very sad watching TV, because there were many disasters, floods, landslides in this country. Her country had a certain number of typhoons every year, and she felt that they became more numerous and powerful than before. Not only in her country but there were also hurricanes that hit badly in America and in the neighboring counties, as well as other natural disasters, such as droughts, that happened all over the worlds. She thought it was definitely because of global warming and the excess of CO2. When she retired from her job, she wanted to use her time to reduce CO2 for the good of the environment. She thought about generating electricity by herself. She remembered a science class at school. In the class, one of the students asked the teacher why we didn't use lightning for electricity. The teacher explained that electricity from lightning was too big to manage and we couldn't store the electricity. So, for starters, she checked it on the Internet: Lightning has a lot of electricity, between 2 million - 100 millionV, 1,000 - 200,000A; but, the time of lightening is very short so the electricity is not as much as we think.  One lightning bolt would be the same amount that a normal household would use for a few days. But, the more difficult part would be to store it. As we know, when we recharge batteries, to recharge takes several hours!She started to study about typical electricity generating such as solar panels, wind generation, and water power generation, which have both strong and weak points: Solar panels: They need a large amount of space and sunshine. Solar panels don't generate electricity at night, and when it is rainy or cloudy, the generation amount becomes very low, like 1/5 of a shiny day. Wind generation: The strength of wind is unstable. One day the wind might be strong, but on another day, there might be no wind. No wind means no electricity, and that might last for many days. Another problem is that it generates noise, so it isn't suitable for downtown areas. Water generation (hydroelectric power generation): The generators need rivers to be attached in. The amount of river water varies depending on rain, and sometimes branches and other debris get stuck in the generators. She decided to try to generate electricity by solar panels. She checked on the Internet and found a website which offered solar panel generation kits for households. One can buy panels, a generator, a battery, cables, stands, an inverter (to change from direct current to alternating current) at the shop, and set it by oneself. It wasn't cheap but she was attracted by it and ordered one of the kits. A week later, it came. The kit was a kit which could generate 300W and costed about 1,000 dollars. It consisted of 3 panels, a wattage and volt controller and a few other things. The next morning, she got up early because she was excited. She lived on the 1st floor of an apartment. There was a small garden place of 3m×6m just in front of her room. Her room faced the south. She went from her room to the outside. She started to build it. One panel was 1.2m×0.5m and weighed about 8 kilo. It was heavy but she was able to manage to lift them. She set the supporting poles into the ground using a hammer and connected 3 panels to them. Then she connected the cables, an inverter and a controller to the panels. It took only an hour or so. It was around 8 a.m. when she was finished. The weather was beautiful on this day. After a while, the pointer of the gauge of the controller started to move to the left. She gave a joyful shout. But, she had to wait for two days to fill the battery. Fortunately, the following day was also a fine day, and before noon time the charge became full. She boiled water using an electric pot and enjoyed a cup of coffee. She didn't think that she would be this satisfied! She started to think to adjust the angle of the panels to get at the maximum amount of light; she was thinking to make the panels more flexible so to adjust the tilt of the panels each hour and each season; she started thinking to even move to the country side and start making vegetables, as well as increasing the number of panels; she was thinking .... |
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*flood :洪水
*landslide :土砂崩れ
*numerous :数多くの
*drought :旱魃
*excess :過剰
*lightening :稲妻
*rechargeable :充電できる
*depending on :による
*alternating current :交流
*consist of :からなる
*manage :なんとかする
*gauge :ゲージ
*following :次の
*satisfy :満足させる
*adjust :調整する
*tilt :傾き