The world will soon know more about carbon dioxide

Increase of concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has raised the concerns over climate change. However, precise understanding of the flow of carbon dioxide has not yet achieved. It is essential to forecast climate changes in earth.

The information of geographic distribution of CO2 does not exist. There are only a few Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centers in United States and that is not enough to give essential data to the climate modelers. The flow of CO2 is not clearly known. Although there are theories suggesting the flow, the full understanding cannot be achieved without more data.

NASA introduced a new satellite, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), scheduled in 2009. The mission of OCO is log in detail the exact flow of CO2. This gives more detail of the effect of the human activities to CO2. OCO will be able to observe most of the earth’s surface at least once every sixteen week. It can also compare its obtained data with other earth-observing satellites. The data obtained from OCO is highly accurate measured. However, some challenges have to be tackled for example the randomness of the flight of the OCO in high atmosphere.

OCO is meaningful in climate change research. It is the concern of all the people. OCO will be able to give us the answer.

Reference:
The world will soon know more about carbon dioxide: Retrieved Nov, 7th, 2008 from http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933604&story_id=12343919

Unethical Abuses of Mapping The Brain

Technology nowadays is advancing so rapidly that scientists can now create a computer that can “read” our minds. This sounds unbelievable but it is definitely an exciting truth. However, this ability of mapping the brain and reading our minds has also brought some inevitable ethical issues.

The first thing is that when such mind reading technology becomes common, our privacy will be easily violated as we cannot even “think silently”. The technology might become so advanced that with a single “scanner”, every single pedestrian’s mind are exposed upon passing over it. People with malicious purpose might use the technology to retrieve important information such as one’s bank account information. Although some of these situations are just pure imagination by now, it is not totally impossible.

Besides, using the technology could violate natural rules. There might be a future when parents try to give their children a brain test. By using the testing results, they determine how they are going to raise their children. What if a brain test tells that a child is very stupid? Are the parents going to give up on him? This is unfair to the children. Their lives might be determined by a single brain test. The parents will lose the invaluable natural experience of raising their children up.

As a result, restrictions must be set up for the use of the brain mapping technology. Only highly authorized institute such as those concerned with national security and research can use the technology. Public should not have access to the technology as they should have no proper purpose to use such sensitive technology. Human right should be taken as the first consideration when using the technology. However, standard becomes unclear especially for a situation that involves interest of two nations instead of benefits of people.

In fact, brain mapping technology should not directly be used to really read people’s mind. Instead, it should be served as a powerful tool to aid research in several fields, such as medical research. With a better understanding of the brain by using the technology, therapy for fatal brain diseases might be possible in the future. A new generation of computer based on our brain could become a reality too.

In conclusion, a new cross-age technology is always very likely to face ethical issues. The same thing happens to genetic engineering too. The final effect of the technology does not depend on how good it is, but on how are the people going to manipulate it.

Portfolio Item 4: Difficulties in Writing

Academic writing is an essential part of engineering education. In this module EG1471, I had the chance to do academic writing before I can really do so. I found that my writing style is not really good enough for writing a good academic essay. In short, the writing style of this form is serious and critical.

Sometimes, I find that my writing style is not as “professional” as I hope. One of the reasons is that I tend to use vague words or phrases. For example, I wrote this sentence in my draft of writing assignment 2: This give buffer for the scientists and researchers to invent more ways to protect the environment before they can be applied in the developing countries. The problem lays on the pronoun “they”. What does “they” refers to? Is it the scientists, the new technology, or the CCS which is mentioned before? Although this looks trivial it does affect the style.

I also feel that my essay is not enough convincing. The main problem is that I do not include necessary details and information in my essay. I think this is because what I did before for writing English essays is just practicing for exams. It is alright for essays in the exams for having no citation and some statistical facts as we have no access to the resources in the exam hall. However, a good academic essay must have strong and convincing facts, details, and preferably some citations from the reputable sources. This makes the essay to have more impact on the readers. I will try to improve my writing skill from these aspects.

Besides, I realize that a lack of vocabulary has become a major problem when I’m trying to write academically. The words I used sometimes are too unspecific, which eventually lead to a vague style of writing. This can and can only be improved by reading more.

I am trying to read more articles in English not only for improving vocabulary, but also my reading speed. I have to read faster so that I can skim through something long winded and extract useful information. This definitely helps my writing too.

Hope that my effort will make writing academically an ease for me in a short future.

Summary: Carbon Capture And Storage To Cambat Global Warming Examined

Carbon capture and storage traps CO2 after it is produced and stores it underground. For huge industries, the potential for reduction of CO2 is significant with CCS. The technology is strengthened by the Earth’s capacity of storage. Earth is able to store all human-induced emissions for more than 100 years. CCS is even more important for developing countries whose consumption of fossil fuels increases rapidly. The goal of CCS is to permanently store CO2, although there is concern about the potential for the gas to leak, which will cause a more severe global warming. However, studies have shown that leakage will not leak significantly and will stay underground likely over 1000 years, with careful monitor. Besides, worries of underground water contamination due to CO2 displacing oxygen arises. Researchers again assure the unlikelihood of such incident provided that the site is selected carefully. Good management is also important. Engineers have decades of experience injecting CO2 into oil reservoirs. Thus, confidence of completing detail procedures of CCS is high.

CCS is progressing smoothly in Norway. It is due to the presence of Norway’s high carbon taxes which discourage carbon emissions. It is important to make a policy framework to make CCS economical. It is believed that CCS will fit into industry in next 20 years with proper development.

There are argues that technology should concentrate more on long-term clean energy. However, CCS is still believed to be one of the solutions for environmental problem. CCS is a bridge technology which will help us before switching to better technology. When that time reaches, we are no longer depend on fossil fuels, nor CCS.

Reference:

Carbon Capture And Storage To Combat Global Warming Examined: Retrieved Oct, 9th, 2008 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070611153957.htm

Portfolio Task 2: Common grammar mistake

One of the grammar mistakes I often made is about subject verb agreement. Although subject verb agreement is one of the most basic knowledge in Enligsh, sometimes I tend to make mistake when using it, especially when writing in rush. I think this is because I'm not a native English speaker who is able to use them very naturally. Subject verb agreement is important because it is the rule to build up a correct sentence. 

The basic of subject verb agreement is the use of correct verb with singular nouns and plural nouns. I am sure everyone has no doubt about that. However, sometimes it becomes a little bit tricky, for example the sentence I just mentioned. "Everyone" seems to be many people, but we have to use singular verbs with it. It will be the same case for pronouns such as anyone, everyone, someone, no one, nobody, etc. This should be quite common but care must still be taken. What if we have two  subject in a sentences? For example, "Jane and Jo are very friendly." "And" and "as well as" has the same meaning, but the use of verb is different. It should be "Jane, as well as Jo, is very friendly". It is because the word "as well as" does not compound the subjects. 

Another point to take note in subject verb agreement is the use of either and neither. They are singluar and require singular verbs even though they seem to be referring to plural nouns. When nor or or is used, determine the type of verb by the closer subject. Whether the subject comes before or after the verb doesn't matter. A quick example: "Neither Jane nor her friends are leaving"  and "Neither the people nor Jane is leaving". Though, it is more usual to use the first one instead of the latter. 

Besides the above points, some of the words indicate plural and also singular, depending on the sentences. For example, "Some of the people are still angry", "A large percentage of the population is starving","Four times four divided by two is eight", etc. 

Subject-verb agreement is not difficult, what we need is to be more careful with it. Reduce mistakes in subject-verb agreement is the basic step to achieve a good writing.

Portfolio task 1: Earth needs engineers

Environmental problem is one of the greatest challenge our world is facing. This is one of the outcome of development. The burning of fossil fuels caused rising in planet’s temperature and threatened disruptive effects on climate. It could cause a disastrous effect, making our planet no longer suitable for living things. This is just one of the problem. With combination of other environmental problem, the possibility of the worst case - extinction of human beings is not really equal to zero. In my opinion, engineers play an essential role in the effort of saving our world. Despite building the world’s highest building, the fastest car, the cleverest robot, engineers should really do something to save our only earth. And in fact, they are doing so, for example engineers have explored technological methods of capturing the carbon dioxide produced from fuel burning and sequestering it underground(National Academy of Engineering, 2008). With the creativity and innovation that lie in engineers mind, there will sure be more and more environmental friendly technology. Moreover, the resource on our earth is finite. How will the world be if fossil fuels run out one day? It is still our main energy-source. That may happened after decades. In fact, the potential of environmentally friendly power such as sunshine is big, although with some technical challenges. However, this is why we need engineers. Engineers is called to be “engineers” as they solve problems, tackle challenges. Engineers used to build up this world. There is no way for them to leave it being destroyed in such manner. There will be a big success if engineers really put efforts in environment problem. Let’s count on engineers, who promised to make world a better place.



National Academy of Engineering. (2008, February). Introduction to the grand challenges of engineering. Retrieved June 3, 2008, from http://engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221/.aspx