GOOD BYE BLOGGING WORLD!!!

HELLO FOR THE LAST TIME WORLD!!!

We, P.E.E.L., would like to reflect on this blog for our last post. We will share our experiences for the past five posts.

What's our blog for?
This blog served as our fourth quarter project/creative expansive output (CEO). And we were tasked to creatively express our opinions on recent scenarios about our recent field trip to the Pawikan Conservation Center and the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. Our Science teacher "urbanguru" made guide questions, the answers of which were to be included in each post.
BTW here's our guide questions for this blog from the blogging project 3.0:

• What is your fourth quarter final CEO (The Blogging Project)?  Give a brief introduction.
• How did you prepare for it?
• Did you encounter any problem/s as you prepare for the said project?  If yes, how did you resolve those problems?  If none, what made it easy for you to prepare for it?
• Given the chance to do this CEO all over again, would you still do it?  Why or why not?
• How do you think this CEO can be further improved?
• Will you change anything regarding how this CEO was handled?  If yes, what would that be?  If none, why not?
• What is the most important lesson that you learned from this CEO?

Our Individual Answers:

Death Scourge

We prepared this with all our effort put into it. How? We basically gathered together to discuss our next move in our blog, or team collaboration. And if we ever needed help, we would ask the urbanguru. If he suggests something then we discuss if this would fit the theme. Though, we had teamwork we still encountered problems. Like failing of posting our blog because of some technical difficulties and sometimes we couldn’t contact each other. We, of course, had to deal with these disgracing problems. We successfully were able to solve these problems by helping and teaching each other how to post properly and put more load to our phones. If I, Death Scourge, was given a chance to do this CEO all over again “Count me in”. I said in the start that I wouldn’t want to do this, but looking at the adventure we just did I can’t deny. The most important lesson that I learned from this CEO is that there is always destruction in every second of our world. We are slowly stepping into a world of disasters. And, especially, the Sea Turtle there millions of them and now there is like 1% or less of them. Why? Because of what we are doing right now, and when we don’t have Earth anymore, where will we go? We have to start now, “Don’t do tomorrow what you could do today”.

(sixth-graders meeting from:Google Images)

Ace of Spades

Here's my point of view... as Death Scourge said, we prepared by meeting up, calling each other then discussing what we would put in the next post. Some problems we encountered on the way were: communication, and lack of creativity. That is why for our last blog we really want to voice out our ideas. I would definitely do this project again because this project makes us aware of the need for clean energy as our country develops and rises in the world. If we could do this project over, we would add more widgets, pictures and personal opinions. I really think that there is no need to further change the mechanics of this CEO because it is challenging without being extremely difficult. It taught us the value of preparation, communication and team work. We need to improve our work habits, manage time wisely and make use of every hour we have. So much can be done within this time.

The Unknown

Our preparations were pretty simple; all we had to do were to answer the questions and give them to our Orion Constellation and Ace of Spades which they then put in our answers into the blog itself. We had some problems along the way. Day 1 was in a hotel relaxing when I completely forgot about our project, so I wasn’t able to make any contributions. We got rid of that problem by just sending our contributions through Facebook. I would do this again; It is fun to express your own opinions (now I see why people enjoy blogs). This Ceo can be further improved by not only adding what we’ve learned during the fieldtrips but in everyday school as well. I wouldn't change anything about the CEO, because it was okay as it is. Although I learned that working alone must be nerve wrecking. 

Orion Constellation

We prepared for it by, asking ourselves, "What would we put in our blog?", and then we all  agreed what answers we should put. If all is wrong, we ask help from Teacher Rye. During the blogging, one of our fellow groupmate left the city. We had difficulty contacting him and he was not able to contribute until now. We resolved it by asking him the question when he got back from his trip. If I were given the chance to do this CEO all over again, I would still do it. This is because our group could have done better if we contacted each other more often then we could have gotten a better result. I think our CEO could be improved by adding more pictures and multimedia. We lacked in pictures and multimedia because we did not have the knowledge of adding these type of media. If I were to change anything regarding how this CEO, we would have met each other more often to talk about our CEO, discuss about it. The lesson I learned from this CEO is that you should help each other in doing important things like projects and CEO's.

Additional Fun Facts:

1.  Nuclear power provides 9% of the electicity in United states of America. Worldwide, it provides approximately 15-19% of the worlds energy.

2.  1 uranium pellet is equivalent to about 1,000 kilograms of coal. Or 2,000 coal pellets.

3.  Since 1973, Power plants have saved at least $44 billion dollars for energy.

4.  Nuclear power leaves no pollution into the air. The smoke you see is actually steam.

5.  In some countries, nuclear power plants produce over 80% of the energy.

6.  Nuclear Power Plants are a attractive target for terrorists.

7.  The U.S. saves $12 billion dollars each year for energy costs because of Nuclear power.

8.  Nuclear/radioactive waste must be stored for thousands of years.

9.  For every uranium atom split by a neutron, two more neutrons pop out.

10.  Surprisingly no people have died working for Nuclear Power Plants.... Except for Chernobyl... Although only 50 people died in that huge accident.... Not very much.... Compared to Car accidents.

From:

http://nuclearpowernpp.weebly.com/fun-facts.html

That was all for this project, P.E.E.L here-signing out.

To Open or Not to Open

Hi world here's P.E.E.L.s fifth post... As you know from our previous blog, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) has been mothballed for thirty years. This post will include advantages and disadvantages of opening the BNPP, and our personal opinions on this. Before we start though we would like to tell you that we would love it if you could contribute your opinions and views on our blog and the situation cited.

First of all, we were faced with the question, if you were the president of the Philippines and there was a sudden power crisis and the price of oil went sky high, would we open the BNPP knowing that we are risking the lives of endangered sea turtles only 8 minutes away?

Here are the pros and cons of the situation to help you pick your side, to open or not to open?
Advantages:

• The added electricity supply will definitely help to solve the power crisis
• As aged as it is, the power plant is well designed and constructed, with similar power plants safely operating around the world.
• When properly used and maintained, and with safety measures properly implemented, there is only a small chance that deadly levels of radiation would leak out.
• The Philippines also needs to cope with the changes of the industrial world, and opening the BNPP is a major step, signifying our readiness to operate such technology.
• The billions of pesos already spent on this power plant would go to waste if we don't open it, especially as it was closed not due to any malfunctions or bad designs but rather due to political reasons.
• Nuclear power plants that are well-run may produce less pollutants and harmful substances, thus leaving the surrounding area cleaner and safer for plant and animal inhabitants than the coal fired power plants commonly used in the Philippines.

Disadvantages:

• Natural Disasters may occur, causing a radiation leak that will kill many people, animals (especially the sea turtle), and plant life. It would also cause the surrounding areas to be uninhabitable for several decades.
• In its 30 years existence, the BNPP has never been in operations and its true condition is unknown. This means many tests should be conducted and expensive parts need to be replaced. This will increase the costs necessary to have the power plant reconditioned before use.

Here's the BNPP:

(picture source)

What is P.E.E.L.'s stand? Political issues and scenarios aside, we support the reconditioning and opening of the BNPP, mainly because during a power crisis you really have no choice but to find ways to produce cheaper electricity. We have one of the most expensive electricity rates in the ASEAN, and many potential investors as well as current businesses and households are negatively impacted by this price. Operating the BNPP will add more supply for Luzon, and hopefully push electric rates in a downward direction. Overall, we believe the pros really outweigh the cons and opening the BNPP would really be a major contributor to the current power crisis.

That's all for this post, and remember, comment your stand we'd love to hear from you. Til' the next post!

Nuclear Energy, Yes or No?

HELLO ONCE AGAIN WORLD!!! This is P.E.E.L.s fourth post concerning Nuclear energy and the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant(BNPP). Here's a general background of what you'll read: what the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy are, our opinion on nuclear energy, and our experiences at the BNPP.

What is nuclear energy? Nuclear energy is part of the energy of an atomic nucleus, which can be released by fusion or fission, or by radioactive decay (thanks wikipedia). The advantages of nuclear energy include:

• It is considered "cheap energy" because it uses less fuel to produce a lot more energy
• It produces less emissions compared to burning fossil fuels, this also lessens global-warming
• Contrary to what most of us may think, records show that it is a very safe and reliable way of producing energy.

Along with every advantage comes a disadvantage so here are a few:

• It takes years and years for it's nuclear waste to lose its radioactivity.
• It is expensive to build and maintain, due to some safety precautions needed.
• Uranium, its fuel, is very limited.
• In the wrong hands, it may be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Overall, although it takes time and money to make nuclear power plants, nuclear energy itself is a very efficient and cheap energy provider. It produces tons of energy while managing to produce minimal emissions.

P.E.E.L. is a big thumbs-up for nuclear energy although as Ben Parker says: "With great power comes great responsibility". The people who run these power plants should run it with great precaution because one mistake will cost you a lot on terms of environmental damage, financial resources and human lives.

We will now talk about the second part of our recent field trip, which was going to the BNPP.

At the BNPP, we expected to learn about: the parts of the nuclear power plant, its fuel, and why it was shut down. Fortunately all our questions were answered. We learned that some parts of the power plant were: the Nuclear Reactor, the Steam Turbine,and the Generator.

Here's a pic of a nuclear power plant:

(image source)

Also we learned that its fuel was Uranium. Fun fact: one pellet of Uranium can power your house for ten whole months!!! 

However, we also learned that the BNPP was shut down because Pres. Corazon Aquino was worried that the unfortunate series of events of the Chernobyl Disaster might also happen to the BNPP. While it has been mothballed, the BNPP is maintained in such a way that it may still be used in the future.

For us the most interesting part of the power plant was the Nuclear Reactor. This was because, it was simply cool. It wasn't easy getting to the reactor because there were a lot of winding stairs, tight spaces and chambers. But when we finally got to the reactor, the guides explained all the complicated parts and how they functioned. It felt a little like being in one of those Soviet Space Stations I've seen in the movies. Seeing that reactor and getting to understand it a little bit better made the entire trip worth it!

Here we are at the BNPP:

(image source)

Lastly a big thanks to our sources:
yahoo answers and advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy