Larry Gray
Hw02
MMEES
Sept 9, 2014
2) Topics of interest for possible energy and environment modeling project
From Fay and Golomb’s Energy and the Environment, topics of interest are:
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Biomass and synthetic fuels
Fuel cells and practical fuel cell systems
Energy storage
Cogeneration
Fusion
Biofuels and the creation of biofuels from MSW
Solar energy, both photovoltaic and thermal
From the Knopf book on Modeling, Analysis and Optimization of Process and Energy Systems, topics of
interest are:
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Mass and energy balance modeling
Solving multiple linear equations simultaneously
Section 7 on gas turbine cogeneration system performance, design and off-design
calculations
Section 10 that discusses gas turbine cogeneration system economic design optimization
Developing optimization and solving multiple equations using excel
From the Barnsley Environmental Modeling book, topics of interest are:
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Modeling solar irradiance
The chapter on population dynamics looked interesting: unconstrained or densityindependent growth
From the Holzbecher book, Environmental Modeling Using MATLAB, topics of interest are:
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Learning to use MATLAB to develop some simple environmental models
Modeling kinetic reactions, equilibrium reactions needed to model gasification of biomass
3) Review collection of supplementary readings, focusing specifically on the Energy collection and
identify some topic areas for potential personal modeling interest
Topics of interest include solar energy, fuel cells. From an environmental modeling viewpoint, topics of
interest include air dispersion modeling
Specific energy modeling topics:
1) Modeling gasification of MSW to syngas and then modeling the Fischer-Tropsch process to make
liquid fuel from the syngas
2) Develop a model to size a solar PV system to produce a certain amount of energy. Take into
account key variables as solar irradiance as a function of time of year, solar PV system
installation angle and orientation (ie. east, west, south facing )