Last semester Physics tutorials were not very well attended: of three I advertised, the first had one student attend, the second had 0, and I was sick on the day of the third, but I did not hear of any students turning up to find me, or receive any requests for a replacement. However, I do still have students ask from time to time. So here is a new system we will try.

If you would like a tutorial after school:

1. Decide on the topic (eg “review the right hand rules”, or ” thermal power station”). You may also choose something from last year.

2. Find at least two other students who would to attend.

3. Ask me at least two days in advance. This gives me an opportunity to advertise it (on my blog, or telling my classes) so more students can come.

4. We hold the tutorial.

Of course, you are welcome on an individual note to come and ask me questions after school (or any other appropriate time). This is just the policy for larger tutorials. We will see if it works…

Happy studying… IGCSEs are getting closer…

This assignment is due in two weeks from this week’s (double block) class. So that is March 12th for 10A, March 13th for 10C and March 14th for 10B.

As a developed and densely populated country, Japan requires vast amounts of energy. It is the third largest producer of electricity in the world, after the USA and China, and the per capita electrical consumption of Japan is the 18^th largest in the world. Japan lacks significant fossil fuels, however, and in 2010 it was the world’s largest importer of coal and natural gas. In 2009, Japan generated a total amount of electricity of 1041 Terra-Watt hours; its average generating capacity was 120GW. 27% was from coal and natural gas, 9% from oil, 27% from nuclear, 8% from hydroelectricity and 2% from other sources, including solar, geothermal and burning waste and biofuel.

Kawagoe Power Station (4802MW), Mie

Following the Tohoku Earthquake and resultant tsunami, amid concern that Japan’s nuclear reactors could not survive future earthquakes and growing public pressure to phase out nuclear power, the Japanese government has been shutting down nuclear reactors; currently only 5 of the nation’s 54 reactors are ‘online’ (producing electricity) and those left are due to be shut down for maintenance in a few months.  This has created a loss of generating capacity of approximately 30 GW (GigaWatts  or 30 000MW), which is currently being made up for mostly by existing thermal power stations, however this results in them running at a higher capacity than normal and should not be maintained indefinitely (in case there is another accident or problems with other power stations). Increased use of fossil fuels will further contribute to climate change, and are also cited as one cause for Japan’s first balance of trade deficit in decades. 

Your task is draft a plan for how Japan can generate the 30 GW of power needed to make up for the shortfall left after nuclear power plants are shut down. You must be specific about how the power will be generated and where the power generation facilities will be located. You may also choose to replace some or all of the remainder of Japan’s electricity generation system (for example, you may wish to replace its current fossil fuel production with renewable energy sources, or with nuclear power.) It should be presented as an essay (with diagrams and figures as appropriate) and saved as a Google Document in your Physics folder.

The Japanese government announced in May 2011 that it had set a goal of having 20% of the nation’s electricity come from renewable energy sources by the early 2020s, however it is your choice whether or not to meet this claim, or to exceed it. Assume that all of Japan’s current nuclear power stations are deemed unsafe in light of recent earthquake predictions and will never be used again (even though this is quite unlikely).

Nunobiki Pleateau Wind Farm, Fukushima

 As an alternative, you may choose to partially or wholly make up for this loss in electricity production by reducing demand for electricity, however you must be specific in how the government will ensure that Japan’s electricity consumption is reduced by 30GW.

Facts here come from Wikipedia and Sustainable Energy – without the hot air by David JC MacKay, an excellent resource which is available for download from www.withouthotair.com.

The following guide may help you with your calculations, however you do not need to use this information. Please note that this information is based on many assumptions, some of which are made for environments different to Japan’s, so may not be 100% accurate. For example, energy obtained through wind and sun were based on European figures, and Japan may receive different amounts of sunlight (due to its latitude) or have more or less windy coastlines. They will, however, be close enough for the purposes of this assignment. Of course, you are welcome to find figures calculated specifically for Japan.

You should not make power plants any larger than the largest currently in Japan, ie. a coal plant should not produce more than 4100MW and a nuclear not more than 8000MW.

The best formula guide I can find for IGCSE is (not surprisingly) in the textbook, on page 260. The units, symbols, metric prefixes and circuit symbols on page 261 may also be very helpful.

However there is one formula which you need to be familiar with which is not there:

Happy Studying!!

A reminder that the Paper 1 (multichoice) exam will be held in class on Wednesday February 15th (the first class back after Ski Break) and Paper 3 (long answer) and Paper 6 (experimental questions) will be held on Friday (during the official Mock Examination schedule).

For students who were at YIS last year, your exam will cover both Grade 9 content and everything we have covered so far this year. For students who arrived this year, you will only be examined on content from this year.

Topics we have covered (from the textbook) include:

Thermal Power Stations and Power Generation (page 62-71). I recommend also reading pages 64-65 to help with your assignment.

Magnetism and Electromagnetism (Pages 156-179).

Note that for “Flemmings Left Hand Rule” (page 162) I taught it as:
thumb = current

fingers = magnetic field

‘slap’ = force on the wire

However if you wish to use the rule from the book this is fine also (it produces the same results).

For electromagnetic induction:

fingers = field (again)

thumb = movement through the magnetic field

‘slap’ = induced current in the wire (if a circuit is connected).

This can be summarised as:

fingers = current; thumb = cause; ‘slap’ = effect

Please note: I have included a question on Power = Voltage * Current in both the G10 only and G9 and G10 combined papers.This was covered last year, but reviewed in the class on transformers. It is as simple as learning this formula, however you can review it on pages 140-141.

Rays and Waves (Pages 84-113). I recommend doing the review on pages 118-119 if you haven’t already.

Note that this unit includes thin lenses (including ray diagrams), which were covered separately (they are included in the IGCSE exams).

The power assignment will be due approximately two weeks after mock exams finish, date TBA.

Happy studying (or skiing) everyone!