Power Plant Proposal And Feasibility: A Student Project For A Thermodynamics Course

This paper introduces a student project for a second-semester thermodynamics class. The project involves competing student teams. Team members select a method of power generation (wind, coal, nuclear, etc.) for a specific geographic location. Then the teams research the feasibility of situating a new power plant in that location using the selected method of power generation. Finally, student teams debate the positive and negative aspects of the selected power generation methods. This project is designed to address several ABET criteria. Introduction The objective of the following paper was to satisfy two relatively new and so far rarely addressed criteria of ABET, namely ABET (3)(c) and ABET (3)(j). Therefore, for the fall semester in the Thermodynamics II class, the students were assigned a project with the following premise: Propose a specific type of power source to add to the power grid in a given location and defend your choice against another power source. This is relevant to the class because the coursework in Thermodynamics II could be considered the groundwork for power generation. The project did not focus on how a certain power source worked, but rather why that certain power plant would be an effective power source for the specific geographical region. This was important because it gave the students practice in an area of engineering that ABET requires, but is many times overlooked in engineering. As a result of the oral presentations, this project also aids in the practice of communication [ABET criteria (3)(g)]. The objective of the project was to have the students examine the benefits and repercussions of building a new power plant. We had the students examine questions like the following: How much will this project cost? How long will the power plant last? How reliable is it? How will the environment be affected? What will this do to the local economy? How many jobs will be created? How much will the electricity cost? Will the government subsidize this plant? Because these questions are related to the economy, the environment and political and societal issues this portion of the project satisfies ABET criteria (3)(c) which reads: Engineering programs must demonstrate that their students attain an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, and manufacturability. (www.ABET.org) P ge 11001.2 This project also satisfies the ABET criteria (3)(j) which reads: Engineering programs must demonstrate that their students attain knowledge of contemporary issues. (www.ABET.org) This was accomplished by having the students examine advancements in technology that have improved the efficiency of different power plants and by having them investigate newer and possibly less known forms of power generation. Also they were to research issues like terrorism, price fluctuations and cost of construction. Finally, this project gave the students practice with communication skills. After they researched their topic, they had to give a presentation to convey what they had found. Communication skills are difficult to practice and the more opportunities the students have to present on engineering topics, the better. This area of the project satisfies the ABET criteria (3)(g) which reads: Engineering programs must demonstrate that their students attain an ability to communicate effectively. (www.ABET.org) The project was assigned to a thermodynamics class that is normally taken by secondsemester juniors in mechanical engineering. No special skills, such as debating, cost analysis, or project management were taught in this class. However, prior to taking this course, students should have completed two courses in English and a course in Engineering Economics. As such, we felt it was a reasonable assumption that the students had the requisite background to complete this task with little supervision. The Project The format of the project was the result of improvements made over a period of multiple semesters. Considering the size of the class (48 people), it was first decided that the students would work in groups of eight consisting of two teams each. The students were asked to choose three aspects of the project: pick which students they wanted to work with; decide what power source they wanted to advocate; and where they wanted to construct this new power source. Both teams needed to consider one common location for their project. They also needed to ensure that their choices were logical. For example, in the Nevada region, solar power and hydroelectric power are two obvious choices due to the rivers in the region, perfect for new dams and vast reaches of desert that are ideal for solar panels. If a group of students could not agree on a power source or location, the choice was made for them. This happened with only two teams and worked out well because it allowed us to round out the variety of power sources and make sure that no one power source was covered more than twice. After the initial choices were made, the students set out to begin research. The objective for each team was to convince their classmates why their design was better than the others’ team design. As stated before, they would not be only looking at how a certain power source works, but rather what kinds of impacts it has on society and nature and why their power plant is a better choice than their opponents’. Furthermore, if the assigned power source had certain stigmas attached to it, the groups would attempt to find support for why this stigma was wrong. However, if this stigma was right, they P ge 11001.3 should explain what steps are being taken to improve this shortcoming. The information gained was then organized into a formal report to be submitted as a part of the total grade. This paper was to address economic, environmental, contemporary and social issues, becoming the foundation of their presentation. The fact that they were asked to present reasons why their power plant was better suited for the area than their opponents’ required the students to research both types of power generation chosen by their group. The debate was conceived in order to make sure the teams knew a great deal about their topic, were able to defend its shortcomings and know enough about the other team’s topic to show that the opponents’ power source would not be as successful in that region as their own. The presentations were limited to 8 minutes of presenting and 2 minutes of rebuttal. This gave the students practice in time management. With this limited time, it was a challenge to present both reasons to support their power source, and to outline why their opponents design was less desirable. Another reason for the limited time was to make sure the projects, as whole, took a maximum of three one-hour classes. After both teams presented, they were given 2 minutes to rebut. This may seem like too little time, but the teams knew the rebuttal was coming and therefore were given ample time to predict what the opposing team would criticize and therefore be able to defend. Although teams would no doubt attack multiple aspects of the others power source, they needed to decide which of those aspects to refute based on its importance. In order to increase the students’ interest, part of their grade was based on how convincing they appeared to the rest of the class. This part of the grade was not so high that it could cripple a group’s grade if they were not persuasive enough, or if the opposing group made an outstanding presentation. This part of the grade was given by dividing a total of 20 percentage points between the two teams, proportionally to the number of votes each team received from a class ballot organized after each debate. The presentation and debate format, while relatively unusual for engineering classes, was conceived to be an effective way to reinforce the ideas embedded in ABET criteria (3)(c) and (3)(j). The reason for this was that, in practice, engineers often must present an idea, design project, or proposal to a mixed audience formed by technical and non-technical people, also that the choices they make are many times influenced by external, nontechnical criteria. Picking the Location and Power Source The very first decision the students had to make was picking a power plant that made sense for the selected geographic region. They needed to look at different regions and decide what type of power plants would work in each area depending on natural resources, population density, etc. An example would be for them to determine if there was a close enough coal mine to justify a coal-fired plant, otherwise the transportation fees might make the coal-fired plant unfeasible. Another example could be that putting a large scale nuclear power plant in Montana would be excessive because of its low population, there might not be a demand for the large amount of power that a nuclear plant offers. The students had no P ge 11001.4 problem recognizing this and instead made choices like the following: Geothermal power for the Cascade Mountains region where volcanic activity is high, biomass power for the Midwest where farm waste is abundant, and oil-fired power for oil rich Texas. This portion of the project satisfies ABET criteria (3)(c) because it has the students make decisions with realistic environmental and economic constraints. The Price of Electricity The next section of the project dealt with the cost per kilowatt-hour associated with individual power plants. A problem arose when the teams had different values for the cost per kilowatt hour than their opposition. Each team quoted costs that supported their power source. However the opposing team’s quote costs were quite different. In every presentation both teams would agree that one power source was more expensive than the other, but the gap in price was often very different be