Portfolio3-solar energy

Nowadays, energy crisis is an important problem need to be solved. As we all know, fossil fuels are non-renewable. The oil and gas are going to be run out and the coal is not environmental friendly. That’s why we need to find a new energy source. Compared with wind and water energy, solar energy is ideal because it’s all-purpose energy and economic and it will never run out. Unlike oil and gas, which will eventually “die out”, solar energy will always be “in stock”. Although not as profuse in some areas as others, all places are adequately supplied with solar power. As stated in the article, “Make Solar Energy Economical”, solar energy only accounts for 1% of the total share of energy we use. The article also states that the Sun gives us 10,000 times as much energy as we actually use. Solar energy can be converted into heat and electricity through photovoltaic (PV) devices and there is no harm to our Earth. Solar energy itself is free because it comes from the Sun, but converting it to electricity and other forms of energy costs money. The more PV devices people buy, the cheaper the price will be. A photovoltaic device costs about $7/Wp (watt power), and although this may be more expensive than your current system, it has lower overall life cycle costs. Energy is and will become even more of a major factor in the future of engineering, because it’s what we live by. Energy is needed in this world so desperately that engineers need to start thinking about renewable sources of energy. We cannot depend on fossil fuels and non-renewable energy sources forever. Solar energy provides a clean and efficient way to power our lives, and it’s time scientists took solar energy seriously as a major source of energy for the future. Until then, we need to concentrate on what we have now, and use it wisely. Remember: it’s not only what we use, but how we use it.

Cited from: Make solar energy economical. http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9082.aspx

portfolio 2- common grammar mistakes

When doing the text editing or writing an essay, I will encounter lots of grammar problems, such as Pronouns, Article, Verbs, Prepositions, Phrases and Sentences. Among those problems how to use verbs accurately is one of the most difficult problems to me. The tense of verbs is one common problem. As verbs are the words used to indicate the tense of a sentence, a verb has different tense forms: present, present participle, past and past participle. Many Verbs acquire the inflection -ed when they are in the past and past participle forms. However, there are verbs that do not adhere to this regularity. They are called irregular verbs. There are some examples: arise-arose-arising-arisen, bid-bade-bidding-bidden, draw-drew-drawing-drawn, hit-hit-hitting-hit. We should pay attention to these verbs or we will make mistakes. Another problem is the Subject-verb Agreement. What we need to pay attention is some trick collective nouns, like committee, company and society. They can be used as singular or plural nouns because they are singular, but logically, they are plural entities. Here is one example:
The committee has decided to go ahead with the merger.
The committee have decided to go ahead with the merger.
However, when the subject is one of …, which is singular, we should use the singular verb form.

To Face the Grand Challenges of Engineering
In my opinion, to have a clear mind of the challenges of Engineering is the most important to be an engineer. Although engineering has done lots of things to enhance the process of our society, there are many significant problems needed to be concerned, such as energy crisis, water pollution and shortage, health care. Before we choose to be an engineer, we need to think about what problems we are going to encounter and what we can do to solve these problems. Only after a person has a clear understand of it, can he be a great engineer and not just a puppet. However, how to have a great cognition? We must know that nowadays Engineers are not the people to build buildings but the people to solve those great problems we are facing and to improve the quality of life. Then, we must know what kinds of problems we have and what we suppose to do to contribute in solving these problems. After that we know what we are going to learn when we decide to be engineers. We should start now to do some preparation for the future and we would not fell confused after four years study in university.