Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/37467
CONNECTION Concert CHARLIE MIKE’S PUB 195 Star Point Road • 826-6453 Tuesday Open Jam — Bring your own instrument Saturday Open mic THE DOGHOUSE 3049 Owen Dr. • 910-826-9761 www.thedoghousegroup.com Monday Open Mic Night Tuesday $2 You Call It Wednesday Bike Night Thursday DJ Sting Friday and Saturday Live music July 27 Mike Odonell July 29 Flood July 30 Cash -N- Run July 31 Johnson Kinlaw Aug. Mike Odonell HUSKE HARDWARE HOUSE 405 Hay Street • 437-9905 www.huskehardware.com Monday Karaoke Tuesday Bryan Shaw Wednesday Huske Unplugged Thursday ‘80s Night Fri. & Sat. Live DJ and Dancing Sunday Sports Sunday IT’Z ENTERTAINMENT CITY 4118 Legend Ave. • 910-826-4635 www.itzentertainmentcity.com July 27 DL Token July 28 DJ Shawn on the patio July 29 The Switch July 30 DJ Shawn on the patio July 31 DL Token July 27 DL Token July 29 Spare Change Aug. 10 Pauly Shore LIDOS - THE EUROSPOT 102 Person St. • 222-8237 Thursday Euro Trance Party Fri. TGIF Dance Party Sat. Ladies Night Sun. Euro Element Dance Part POINDEXTER’S SALOON 115 Dunn Rd. • 433-2089 Wed. Bike Night with live music Come Out and Play! • New Tables • New Management • All Liquor Licenses • Ice Cold Beverages Could We Harness Energy From Earthquakes? From the Editors of Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: Can earthquake energy be harnessed for power, particu- larly in places like Japan? Also, how can Japan, so vulnerable to earthquakes, even have nuclear power? — Sasha M., Australia While it is no doubt theoretically possible to generate electricity by harness- ing the kinetic energy of shifting tectonic plates below the Earth’s crust, pulling it off from a practical standpoint would be a real logistical challenge — not to mention prohibitively expensive compared to harnessing other forms of energy, renewable or otherwise. Big earthquakes throw off vast amounts of energy. According to Beth Buczynski of the CrispGreen website, researchers have calculated that the January 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake that killed upwards of 220,000 people in Haiti released as much energy as 31 of the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. And the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck northeast Japan in March 2011 unleashed the equivalent of more than 15,000 Hiroshima bombs. That’s a lot of energy in- deed. “The total energy from an earthquake includes en- ergy required to create new cracks in rock, energy dis- sipated as heat through fric- tion, and energy elastically radiated through the earth,” reports the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazards Program. “Of these, the only quantity that can be measured is that which is radiated through the earth.” Likewise, only this radiated energy — which is what shakes buildings and is recorded by seismographs — could be har- nessed, given the dedication of enough resources and the proper implementation of the right technologies. Just how to harness tectonic energy is the big question. One way would in- volve stringing quartz crystals, which can transfer electricity via piezoelectricity, underground along known fault lines. When tectonic plates shift, the crystals could transfer the energy they pick up to a grid-connected storage medium for later use. But this is hardly practical, for one because earthquakes rarely hap- pen in a predictable manner let alone in the exact spots where energy harvesters would have set up their gear. Also, fault lines tend to run deep below the Earth’s surface, so laying down a network of quartz crystals would involve mining out shafts and connecting them underground on a scale way beyond what humans have done to the present. Regarding why Japan is so reliant on nuclear power despite the tectonic risks is a matter of economics. Lacking the rich oil, coal and other energy reserves of many other nations, Japan relies on nuclear power for some 30 percent of its electricity. Prior to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Japan was gearing up to boost its nuclear power reserves to account for half of its electricity needs by 2030. This increased reliance on nuclear power was set to play a big part in the country’s rollback of greenhouse gas emissions. Prior to the earthquake and tsunami, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency had modeled a 54 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from 2000 levels by 2050, and a 90 percent reduction by 2100, with nuclear energy accounting for upwards of 60 percent of the country’s total energy mix. Now it looks like the country may scale back its nuclear expansion plans, which in the short term will only increase its reliance on fossil fuels which will in turn drastically limit Japan’s ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, one would hope that turning away from nuclear expansion would spur the growth of alternatives such as wind power and other forms of renewable energy. CONTACTS: CrispGreen, www.crispgreen.com; U.S. Geological Survey’s Hours: 12p-2a 910-339-7648 3116 Bragg Blvd. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Earthquake Hazards Program, www.earthquake.usgs.gov. EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine ( www.emagazine.com). JULY 27 - AUGUST 2, 2011 UCW 17