부산대학교 도서관

The climate doomsday clock is counting down rapidly, and we must quickly find solutions to generate green energy and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. The average American uses a lot of water each day. If we could harness all of the excess water for energy, we would be able to produce sustainable electricity from what would otherwise be wasted. A majority of energy that humans use is produced by natural gas, nuclear power plants, and coal, which damages the environment. Coal and gas are not sustainable resources and will eventually run out. They also produce greenhouse gasses and destroy the Earth through mining for gas and coal. Contrary to this, hydroelectric power does not hurt the environment as the kinetic energy from wasted water can be used to generate electricity. This also does not create any further waste unlike the greenhouse gasses produced from burning coal and oil. We have designed a device with the goal of turning everyday runoff water into energy. Our problem was to find a way to conserve energy in order to advance towards a more environmentally friendly world. We observed that there was a lot of runoff water from many different sources during the day, so we decided to construct a water wheel that would be able to be placed under runoff water sources in order to harvest this excess water to use towards energy. Our water wheel aims to provide all with a means to generate power from waste water in their homes. When addressing the problem we made sure to account for socioeconomic factors as well, as a focal point of our design was availability and convenience. Thus, we arrived at a prototype that is 1) cheap and easy to build, 2) relatively small and easy to install, 3) interchangeable with most plumbing systems in bathrooms and kitchens, resizability would also account for this, 4) environmentally conscious materials. Our device is a water wheel that can be fitted onto many different types of pipes, and produces a small amount of energy. We believe that with many of these within a building we would be able to generate a reasonable amount of energy for utilization for any purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]