Week 3

Objectives:

• Determine what is involved in greenhouse gas emissions
• Examine the stages of vehicle life
• Assign specific types of cars for each group member to research

Activities:

After examining the inner-workings of the GREET model, we decided it would be beneficial to explore the idea of life cycle and how it works with automobiles.  

• As we learned in week one, the GREET model takes all factors available for examination and uses them to create the final model. Since the operation of the vehicle is not the only source of greenhouse gas emissions, it cannot be the only thing considered in our research.  

• Below the general stages of vehicle life are modeled for each of the types of vehicles we plan on working with.

Life Cycle by Vehicle:

• Gas - Gas vehicles require fewer intricacies in the manufacturing of the vehicle than the others, however the oil needed to operate these vehicles is much greater than the others

• Hybrid - Hybrid vehicles go through the same processes as the gas vehicles through their lifetime but add the production and recycling of the battery.  As a trade-off, they require less oil to power their gas motor.

• Electric - Electric vehicles have less mechanical components than gas and hybrid vehicles but have large batteries that must be produced and eventually recycled. While operation of these vehicles does not use any oil, the electric energy to charge them must be produced somewhere.

• Hydrogen - Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are currently being held back by the cost and difficulty of production.  The fuel cells themselves are costly and the hydrogen fuel, while eco-friendly, is currently produced from fossil fuels.  Also considered in the life cycle of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is the recycling of the fuel cell itself.

Commentary:

This week was mostly spent researching the systems above.  We found information pertaining to the specific portions of the processes that will be gathered to help us create the GREET model.  Also completed this week was assignment of specific research roles for each group member.  Alex will be working on gas vehicles, Nondu will be researching hybrid vehicles, Erica will be taking care of electric vehicles and Anthony will be working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.  We assigned roles so as to not conduct redundant research and so we could focus on our respective vehicles, getting more in-depth information and analysis.  

References:

Information on the life cycles of CVs, BEVs and HEVs, 

http://www.environment.ucla.edu/media/files/BatteryElectricVehicleLCA2012-rh-ptd.pdf

Information on recycling EV batteries

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/es903729a

General information on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles

http://www.iop.org/resources/topic/archive/fuel/

Week 2

Greenhouse gas Overview

             Transportation of goods have always been at the forefront of every civilization, how fast can the product be made and delivered to an area where the demands are high or transportation of people over a vast distance. The development of the automobile allowed society to expand towards the edge of the city, surbanization, and the production of goods are able to reach developing towns and cities faster. While this lead to the success of developing areas, it also creates harsh living conditions for those still living within the cities.

            As our cities continue to grow and expand both upward and out, the ability to sustain a healthy climate decreases. Cities being generally warmer, have more rain and clouds, creates a harsh living environment for plant life to flourish. These factors contribute to the increased concentration of carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants. The normal behavior of temperature in the troposphere is to decrease with height, allowing the concentration of pollutants to escape. As clean air sweeps the Earths surface it collects natural and anthropogenic pollutants, often called primary pollutants, these are often dispersed or diluted by the turbulent air in the troposphere keeping pollutants from reaching dangerous levels.

            However, in a thermal inversion, a lower layer of cool air can be trapped beneath a layer of less dense warm air, allowing pollutants to reach a toxic level. Two types of air pollution directed related to the burning of fossil fuels and creating unhealthy living conditions in cities are photochemical, a chemical reaction activated by light, and industrial smog are the leading causes for unhealthy living conditions in urban areas.

 

         Normal atmospheric state                                      Thermal Inversion             

            Urban areas face a growing concern towards GHG as population continues to grow, contributing to the 80% of harmful anthropogenic pollutants since 1980. As a whole, conventional vehicle in the United States can account for approximately 28% of CO2 emissions. As the Federal Government focus more on increasing fuel efficiency and lowering greenhouse emissions, we can move further away from fossil fuel and more towards alternative energy vehicles.

          
References:

A study on Vehicle Emissions
http://phys.org/news/2015-04-vehicle-emissons-aid-urban-sustainability.html

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
http://www.c2es.org/federal/executive/vehicle-standards 

UN Data
http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=United%20States%20of%20America#Environment 

EPA
https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/sources/transportation.html 

Week 1

Engineering Freshmen Design III

Lab Section: 076

Group 5: Chinondu Emeana <cbe25@drexel.edu>
                 Alex Hall <abh53@drexel.edu>
                 Erica Feinstein <ejf57@drexel.edu>
                 Anthony Paris <amp474@drexel.edu>


ACTIVITIES AND OBJECTIVES 

• Introductions:
• Group members were introduced and appropriate contact information was shared. 
• Avenues for group collaboration such as: group message boards, goggle docs etc were established. 
• Possible project topics were discussed and finalized as "Energy and Carbon Footprints of Electric and Conventional Auto mobiles". 

• Role Assignment for Design Proposal and Blog. 
• Design Proposal (Due before April 6, 2016)
• Majority of the information on the proposal would be gotten from the (1) G.R.E.E.T. life cycle model courtesy of the Argonne National Lab. 
• The (2) vehicles studied on this proposal were narrowed down to internal combustion engine, hydrogen fuel cell, electrical and hybrid cars and assigned to each group member to assess and write on. 
• Group Blog: 
• The Blog was set-up during lab primarily by Alex Hall, though all members were in active participation of the process. 
• Each member is to post at least one of the weekly updates concisely describing the group's progress. 
• The username and password for the blog was shared among the group, to enable each member a chance to post. 

• Goals.
• Understand and utilize the G.R.E.E.T life cycle model for this project.
• Submit all deliverables on time. 

G.R.E.E.T. model Spreadsheet image. 

REFERENCES

• (1) G.R.E.E.T. life cycle model by Argonne Laboratory, Illinnois
  Primary website: https://greet.es.anl.gov/greet_2_series
  Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=t1eP91BOxFM&index=3&list=PLLT1SPoEVQqwSEc1DQZ0LYpALqYbBAeb5
  
  
• (2) Alternative energy fuel Vehicles

  Primary website:  https://www.youtube.com/watchv=t1eP91BOxFM&index=3&list=PLLT1SPoEVQqwSEc1DQZ0LYpALqYbBAeb