W7T1-One of the 14 grand challenges for engineering

My article comes from the website “NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING”. It is about the 14 grand challenges for engineering in 21st century. Among 14 challenges, I choose “make solar energy economical” as the most important challenge. The article I read and summarize is about this topic.
The first part talks about why solar energy is important. Any energy forms on the earth are solar energy in origin; however, the energy we used directly from solar energy is fractional. The advantage of solar energy is that we can attain is almost everywhere. Therefore solar energy still has great potential to develop. Another reason is that traditional energy cannot afford enough energy to the increasing energy demands. Meanwhile, fossil fuel produces much pollution which may result in the global warming.
The second and third parts state how to improve solar energy technology. The challenge for engineering is to improve the conversion of solar energy efficiently and make the manufacturing cost economical. Most of solar cell today can convert solar energy to electrical energy in 10 to 20 percentages; however, the cost to produce solar cell is 3 to 6 times higher than current price. One of the possible ways is to develop nanotechnology which can transfer solar energy to circuit. And find a particular material which can absorb light and then drive changes to move.
The last part relates to how to store solar energy. No matter how efficient and economical we can convert solar energy, we need to store during cloudy weather or nighttime. One of the possible solutions is to produce a kind of fuel cell which can store solar energy into chemical energy.
In conclusion, if we succeed settling this challenge, we can use solar energy more efficient and economical; we do not need to worry about whether we can leave any energy to our descendants any more.
Reference:
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING, <http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9082.aspx>

W5T2-My grammar mistakes

No matter how good you are at English writing, you may still make some kinds of mistakes, such as grammar mistakes or vocabulary mistakes. As English is not my native language, I always meet some grammar mistakes in my English writing. Looking at some articles I wrote before, the most mistakes in my article is about sentence structure. The reason why I often make this mistake is that English sentence structure is very different from Chinese sentence structure. Therefore, I always write English sentence in Chinese sentence structure. Firstly, I always use “there have/has” instead of “there be” sentence structure. For example, when I want to express that there is a river flowing in front of my house, instead I may write as this way, “there has a river flowing in front of my house.” Another problem is about the object clause. If the object clause is an asking sentence, the object clause should be in stating form; however, I usually use asking form. For example, if sentence should be “Can you tell me where you are from?” probably, I will write “Can you tell me where are from?” Some similar mistakes happen frequently in my English writing, if I do not pay much attention when writing. Secondly, I like use coordinating conjunctions together, because in Chinese they always come together. For example, in my writing, “although” and “but” come together, “because” and “so” come together. I am used to applying language in Chinese way. It is difficult to change this habit. But if I want to improve my English, it is necessary to think in English way.

Why people resist new technology

In the past twenty years, technology develops and updates at an amazing speed. New technologies are born every day. However, in our daily life, the majority of people still resist new technology. In my opinion, why this could happen is because that people do not want to accept new things in their mind and human nature is averse to change. First, people resist new technology in their mind. Most people consider that the old technology should be more suitable and reliable than new technology, although they may know that the facts are opposite. In people’s mind, they usually think that the familiar things are safe, while the strange things are dangerous. For example, genetic food as a new technology product is considered having potential dangers to human. People need time to become familiar with new technology. This reason makes it difficult for people to accept new technology. Second, I think one aspect of the human nature is to do things in the same way. When a person does a certain thing, a reflection or memory will be formed in the brain. The next time, when the same situation comes, the brain normally works as how it worked before. There is a widespread story in China. Long ago, a viper bit a person; the person was nearly dead. The memory which snake is dangerous formed in his brain. After he recovered, he began to fear any snakes, even the reflection of a long rope in a cup which looks like a snake. This is called “a burnt child dreads the fire”. Thus, many people are used to doing things in the familiar way, and they resist new technology. For these two reasons, we can understand why people resist new technology. The resistance is mostly psychological. If people can overcome the psychological barrier, fewer people will resist new technology.