Final Research

Nuclear Power VS Solar Power

Energy is very important in different regions of the world since it supports and helps social development, and the growth of financial systems in different nations. Because of the global importance of energy, it is important that different actors affected by the energy industry understand what the energy sector will be in the future. This research is about the Nuclear Power versus Solar Power.

Solar power

 Solar power is the largest source of energy entering the environment. Some of the rays are reflected and released by the atmosphere while some get onto the earth's surface, and get converted into various forms of energy. Usage of solar power dates back to the Middle Ages period where it was used for warming. The photovoltaic cells make use of solar energy. Global solar energy potential ranges from 2.5 to 80 TW and is currently at 18 % of world energy consumption. In the United States, for example, solar energy has the capacity of supplying energy needs, but requires the installation of photovoltaics on an average area of 180 square kilometers. The first and very clear benefit of concentrated solar power is that, in many nations of the world, especially the industrial and developed nations, concentrated solar power can increase the supply of available power. Inclination towards energy from concentrated solar power processes reduces the rate of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere which characterizes the use of other forms of energy.

Depending on solar energy alone may not be practical for small countries. Market share of solar energy is very low with the current generation at 2.6 GW. Putting up large concentrated solar power plants is often very expensive, and requires a huge amount of money.

Nuclear Power

The opponents of nuclear power plants argue that they are very costly but within  half a year of their operations nuclear plants are usually able to cover the costs. The coal, gas and oil are easier to have in different parts of the world; their capacity to produce energy is much lower than that of the nuclear power plants which use uranium. This causes nuclear power to be more economical and with more energy generating capacity than any other form of power.

 Nuclear power plants use uranium to provide power for their operations; uranium has been proven to be more effective than solar power. 30 grams of power taken from uranium is similar to 100 tons of coal. The uranium that is used in nuclear power plant is usually combined with other free neutrons and then separates into light components. A challenge that adds a lot of muscle to the argument against nuclear power plants is that accidents happen in such plants. One of the best-known accidents is the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

In my opinion, countries that have nuclear plants should note that the uranium that is used in the production of electric energy is different from that which is used in the manufacturing of explosives and bombs. Because if there is any accident it will result in a large number of deaths and the particles will spread into the atmosphere, and to many countries.

Controversial Issues: Animal Testing

Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. There was an estimate that the number of mice and rats used as experiments in the US alone in 2001 was 80 million. Nowadays there is an estimate worldwide of between 10 million to 100 million experiments yearly. Supporters of the use of animals in experiments, such as the British Royal Society, argue that virtually every medical achievement in the 20th century relied on the use of animals in some way. There are other organizations which argue that animals have the right not to be used for experimentation. They are using these experiments in many different areas such as toxicology testing, that is known as safety testing, cosmetics testing, drug testing, education, and military defense. There are many people who have their viewpoints. Some people don’t agree with such experiments. The British government has additionally required that the cost to animals in an experiment be weighed against the gain in knowledge. Some medical schools and agencies in China, Japan, and South Korea have built graveyards for killed animals. A wide range of viewpoints exist. As for my point of view, there are some reasons it has to be acceptable to do experiments with animals to avoid high risk to human beings. They are using some animal testing for AIDS or for eye problems. These are big experiments so for that reason they cannot harm a human being.

Case Study

Description:

At the beginning the case study talked generally about the Higher Colleges of Technology and their success through the years. After the case introduced 3 different thoughts about the Higher Colleges of Technology; each thought was different from the others; for instance the first thought by Hamdan talked about how learning in the Higher Colleges of Technology is better than the other institutions. While the second by Khalid thought mentioned that the other institutions will be ahead of the Higher Colleges of Technology. Yet the last thought by Imad said that each institution has its own duty to develop the UAE’s education.

Higher Colleges of Technology study the requirements of the society then they apply it in their curriculum. Higher Colleges of Technology also established many partnerships with national and international Universities and companies such as Oxford University, Cambridge University, IBM, Siemens and so many others.

Introduction:

My case study is about higher education in the UAE. The Higher Colleges of Technology were established in 1988 by Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mabark al Nahyan. Currently Higher Colleges of Technology is one of the largest institutes of higher education in the UAE; it has 17 campuses throughout the country and each gender has a special campus .There are more than 20 thousand students and 2000 staff in the campuses. Higher Colleges of Technology provides in its campuses all that the students might need like parking lots, food courts, places to study, prayer rooms and security. HCT’s library has a lot of books, magazines and films that the student can borrow; it also has an electronic library version that has more than 40,000 electronic books and 36,000 electronic newspapers and magazines. HCT does all that to build an ideal student that contributes to the development of the UAE. 

Body:  

The Higher Colleges of Technology provide different degrees such as Diploma, Higher Diploma, Bachelor and Master’s Degree. The Higher Colleges of Technology contain various kinds of majors such as Engineering, Business, IT, Health and Science, and Media. There are other places that offer more courses like Zayed University. The learning design of Higher Colleges of Technology is “Learning by doing”. Learning by doing means that students gain knowledge and experience by their performing a variety of tasks. All programs in Higher Colleges of Technology use English language with some subjects in Arabic and the majors are serving our society in industry and governmental departments. Although most of the biggest companies in the UAE send their employers to complete their education at Higher Colleges of Technology, such as ADNOC, Emirates Steel, NPCC and the Ministry of the Interior. The Higher Colleges of Technology provide teachers with a high performance in education throughout the world because it is vocational and there are competitors. In each major they have specific sections for learning; for example in  the Electronic Engineering Lab there are a lot of electronic devices and components which help students practicing. Safety is the most important aspect in a lab. Health is still the most important aspect in teaching. Students who study Bachelor degree and Higher Diploma do internship for eight weeks; internship is giving the students experience in their majors.

Therefore Hamdan supports the Higher Colleges of Technology model because it is vocational. However, Khalid thinks that other institutes will be ahead of the Higher Colleges of Technology, for example Zayed University; the mission of Zayed University is the new student orientation program aims to welcome new students and their families to Zayed University and to facilitate their transition to university life. The program is intentionally designed to engage new students in intellectual, cultural and social activities that help them to make meaningful connections with their peers, faculty and staff, and integrate them into the ZU community. Another example is AAU; the mission of AAU is The Admission and Registration Unit seeks to organize the admission and registration processes for AAU students and follows up their educational affairs from the moment of their admission until their graduation. The Unit emphasizes compliance with the AAU applicable regulations and the confidentiality of the students’ records. Imad thinks each educational institution has a different task for education in the UAE. 

Conclusion:

To conclude, Higher Colleges of Technology is one of the most popular govermental institutions in the UAE. Its branches almost spread all over the country. According to the three graduate thoughts, HCT has a different learning style from the other institutions, but I agree with Hamdan because Higher Colleges of Technology uses the latest teaching methods such as learning by doing, which helps the student to feel like he’s out of pressure, as well as it always seeks to provide the healthy decent life inside its campuses.

Quiz

   1)      Critical thinking is an activity using the mind and there are many factors.

-Being able to recognize wrong or false assumptions.

-Identifying other people’s positions.

-Making conclusions about arguments.

-Making people understand your point of view.

   2)      1-Misunderstanding of what is meant by criticism: some people assume that criticism means negative comments but critical thinking means both positive and negative comments.

2- Group think: when everyone thinks the same.

3- Lack of methods and practice.

4- Emotional attitude.

5- over estimating abilities.

   3)      A fallacy is an argument and a fallacy can be either formal or informal. The causes:

1-      Personalization of the argument: attempts to attack the person rather than understanding the argument itself.

2-      ‘you too’ theory: attempts to understand wrong action because the person sees that the other person does it.

3-      Argument from personal inability to understand.

4-      No connection between the argument and the conclusion.

5-      Confusing with causes.

   4)      There are many benefits and some of them are:

1-      Reading deeply.

2-      A good attention.

3-      Improved skills to reply to a person’s message.

4-      Improved skills of how to make people understand your points easily.

Fair & false analogie

To compare the human heart with a pump is a fair analogy, as this is essentially the function of the heart i.e. to move blood around the circulatory system via arteries & veins.

To suggest that cloning humans is dangerous and could lead to the production of a Frankenstein's monster is a false argument because if we clone a sheep we get a sheep which is exactly the same.
Cloning may or may not be a good thing but arguments against it must be based on fair analogies & sound logical argument, not scare-mongering.