GOCE

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE, (here in LEGO by Stefan Schindler) was a low-earth-orbit satellite operated by the European Space Agency from 2009-2013 to map out the earth's gravitational field, and also to probe the structure of the earth's mantle, with some focus on volcanic regions, and study oceanic behavior.

Female figs Cuusoo project

Cuusoo is a LEGO website for crowdsourcing set ideas. You propose a set, and if it gets 10,000 votes, LEGO promises to take a serious look at producing the set. Most of the sets that have made it to 10,000 have been attached to some movie/TV show/video game, and fans of that movie/show/game help push it over the top. That said, there have been two science driven sets already produced, the Shinkai submarine and the Hayabusa space probe, in the original Japan-only version of Cuusoo, and the Mars Curiosity Rover is being considered in the most recent round of creations that have reached 10,000. Now it seems that socio-political forces are pushing another to the top. Alatarial designed Female Minifigs to help correct the gender imbalance in Legoland, putting women in small scenes depicting different occupations. The cool thing, and the reason why I'm posting this here on SciBricks, is that many of those occupations are as scientists, probably because Alatarial is herself a geochemist: paleontologist, astronaut, astronomer, chemist, (falconer), geologist, and engineer (plus six others in non-science roles not shown here). I assume that this was recently posted on some social media site, or featured in some news source, because the project jumped from 2500 votes to 7500 in just three days.

Volcano

Shannon Ocean built this great cross section of a volcano. You can see how the cone was built up by successive layers of ash. At the bottom you see the magma chamber and the conduit leading up to the vent, with a dike leading off to a smaller vent on the side.

LEGO and wind power

LEGO has an extensive record with wind power. In their educational Dacta line, sets like 9684, Renewable Energy and 9688, Renewable Energy Add-On help kids create science experiments to learn about wind power.



In 2008 they created an exclusive set, Vestas Wind Turbine as part of their cooperation with that company (see yesterday's post). Unfortunately for LEGO fans, that set was very limited, and only available to Vestas employees.



Probably in response to the huge AFOL interest in the exclusive Vestas set, the following year LEGO released 7747, Wind Turbine Transport.



Wind turbines have also been featured in the Legoland parks, such as here in Billund.



A larger wind farm is being built at Legoland Billund, to celebrate LEGO's billion kroner investment in a wind farm being built off the coast of Germany. The company is committed to using 100% renewable energy by 2020.

Geothermal energy

Another way of generating electricity relies on the heat energy of the core of the earth. The earth's core reaches temperatures of up to 5000 degrees Celsius. This is in part left over heat from the origin of the planet, but is even more due to the decay of radioactive elements deep in the earth's core. This tremendous heat energy melts rock, which begins to rise. Most spectacularly, if this magma bursts through to the earth's surface, we see a volcano (here in LEGO by Bryce McGlone and Brandon Griffith).



If the magma does not burst through to the surface, but instead heats up groundwater, the resulting superheated steam can burst out in the form of a geyser (here in LEGO by Brother Steven).



Geothermal power takes advantage of this superheated groundwater. Either the steam that is created directly turns a turbine, or its heat is used to vaporize a secondary liquid that then turns a turbine. In either case, this then generates electricity. MyGreenHosting made 'a LEGO set we'd like to see': geothermal powered data center. MyGreenHosting is an Icelandic web hosting company that promotes itself as environmentally friendly because they are completely powered by geothermal and hydroelectric energy.



Geothermal electricity is efficient and nonpolluting. Unfortunately, it is very limited in application because it requires very specific geological conditions. For instance, it only accounts for 0.3% of US power. Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of geothermal, with 30% of their electricity coming from geothermal. The Phillipines, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Kenya, Nicaragua and New Zealand are other countries with at least 10% of their electricity coming from geothermal.