Week 9

This week we discussed our concerns and objectives to conclude this assignment.  For the presentation, Bryan will be responsible for the introduction, Erik will discuss the fuel systems and GREET, and Dan will be presenting SEC, the results, and the conclusions.  By using only three of our group members to present, we hope to more effectively present the material without changing presenters as often.  Tiancheng and Ross will be performing other operations during the presentation to aid with advancement, Q&A, and logistics.    Over the next week, the presenters will be modifying their slides to better suit their style of presentation.  Dan will be finishing the paper.

Week 8

This week in class, we discussed the layout of the final presentation.  It was decided that three of the group members will be presenting the presentation in order to streamline the process.  The final paper will be constructed over the next two weeks, outlining and concluding our findings.  Prof. Spatari has asked that the paper be written as though it were a letter to the President of the U.S., advising him of our findings.  Dan and Bryan will be writing the final report.  Erik will continue maintaining the website, and will be adding a page overviewing the GREET models.  Finally, Ross and Tiancheng will be creating handouts and preparing the generic presentation.

Week 7

In this weeks lab, we discussed our findings and continued planning our conclusion of this project.  From Ross and Steven's presentation outline, we worked out what parts of the project would be represented in both the final report and the presentation for week 10.  With our objectives in order, we then assigned tasks to be accomplished over the next week which will aid in the generation of both components.  Dan will assume the role of editor in chief of the blog, meaning he is responsible for the content, formatting, and editing. Bryan will be editing the Fuel Systems page, and be assisting in writing additional content. Eric will be developing a page which will give an in-depth explanation of the GREET model. Ross and Steven will be continuing work on the presentation, adding in figures and diagrams which will be discussed.

Week 6

This week we worked more on the application of the SEC calculator on data from GREET. We also decided that it would be prudent to expand our coverage to include a larger range of years.  In addition to the 2010 data, we will also be investigating 2007, 2013, 2016, and 2019.  With these additional SEC results, an extrapolation will be created in order to establish the trends that each of these fuel sources are following.  This extrapolation will give a much more influential basis with which to justify the creation of SEC.  Our hope is to be able to present SEC as a legitimate scale to use in the analysis and comparison of any fuel system, and with these additional data points, the scale should gain rapport with it's critics.

Finally, we allocated tasks to move us toward the completion of our data, graphs, charts, write ups and presentation. Dan is responsible for tabulating the results of the SEC and projecting outputs up until the year 2019. Bryan is responsible for writing up the Fuel Systems page and finalizing it. Eric is responsible for gathering data from GREET and assisting Dan in the finalization of the SEC data. Ross and Steven will both be working on calculating the costs of implementing the alternative systems, and outlining the presentation for week 10.

Week 5 Recap

          This week we gathered and put our GREET numbers to use. The numbers that we collected were utilized in a vehicle emission scale which we created.  The purpose of the scale is to score each fuel system on it's emissions, so that we may compare them to each other.  The score of each system is calculated from the volume of each compound that the system emits over it's life cycle.  The compounds themselves are ranked on a 1-30 scale, which considers the IDLH concentration (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health), environmental impact, and flammability/reactivity of each component. From this ranking of the compounds, we can easily distinguish which are the worst, and weigh their measurements more heavily in our emissions scale. 

          This week we focused on testing our scale, the "System Emissions Calculator", on our control, gasoline. Our calculator considers the emissions generated during fuel rendering, fuel transportation, vehicle construction, vehicle transportation, and the actual use of the system.  We have not completed the analysis yet, but the score that we generate for gasoline will be the base line for our calculator results.  This means that the other systems will need to surpass this score in order to be a better choice than gasoline.  As we move into the next couple of weeks, more information will be provided on the blog about our calculator.

Assignments:

• Dan, Bryan, Erik will be meeting this weekend to finish the gasoline calculation and generate values for the other systems using the System Emissions Calculator (SEC).
• Ross and Tiancheng will be gather pricing information for the various types of refueling stations required to operate our systems.

Week 4 Recap

                This week in our meeting we began to compile data which we acquired from the GREET 1 model.   Looking at the data given, we came to the conclusion that it might be necessary to come up with some sort of grading system for the various fuel sources.  The reason we are looking into developing this, is because we have no measure of which data points carry the most weight, and should be treated as larger contributors to the overall “score” of a fuel.  As an example, a full electric car has practically no CO₂ emissions when compared with a gasoline-powered car, but expends considerably more energy during the production of its “fuel”.  Our grading system will need to compare the significance of the various data points in order to properly weigh them against one another.

                So having gotten this far into the data, we expect to be posting our findings to the blog very soon.  The task of generating our grading system is now one of the deliverables for the coming weeks as well.  The method of our grading system shall be made available with the results.  In order to better prepare our data, we will also be starting to layout our final presentation, which should help us develop charts and tables from our data.

Assignments:

• Bryan and Eric will be working on the development of our data through the grading system.

• Tiancheng and Ross will be starting our final presentation to help us understand what we need to make our data more presentable.

• Dan will be continuing construction on the blog.  Consolidating pages, and editing.

Week 3 Recap

In our meeting this week, we discussed the features of the GREET models that we had been researching.  We were able to come to the conclusion that the information provided to us by the model would prove invaluable in our efforts to investigate the various fuels systems.  The most important feature to note from the models were their ability not only to look at the efficiency of a vehicles operation, but also the impacts, emissions, and energy used just to create the vehicles which employ them.  It is also important to note that the list of considerations that went into the generation of these models goes way beyond just these few.  We will provide a much more in-depth look into the GREET models which will be available on this blog in the coming weeks.

Based on the results that we were starting to see from the GREET models, we decided that it would be prudent to start planning our next course of action.  Because we intend on providing an answer to the alternative energy question, we will be trying to generate numbers to simulate the costs associated with updating  the country’s infrastructure to accommodate the best solution.
 

Assignments:

• ·         Ross, Bryan, and Tiancheng will be compiling the data that they have been given by the GREET 1 simulation.  From the data they will be pooling together the key components that are relevant to our study and creating a table. 

• ·         Eric will finish analyzing the second model, GREET 2.7, which focuses on the creation, usage, and eventual recycling of the vehicle chassis itself.  This model should help further illustrate the differences between the vehicle types we are looking at.

• ·         Dan will be focusing on maintenance and renovation of the project website.  In addition to this, he will also be assisting Eric with the research into GREET 2.7.