Energy

  1. 2 types of non-renewable energy sources
    Conventional and Unconventional
  2. Examples of Conventional non-renewable energy sources
    Petroleum, Natural Gas, Coal and Nuclear
  3. Examples of Unconventional non-renewable energy sources
    Oil shale and natural gas hydrates in marine sediment
  4. Examples of renewable energy sources
    Solar photovoltaics, Solar thermal power, Passive solar air and water heating, Wind, Hydropower, Biomass, Ocean energy, Geothermal, Waste to Energy
  5. Which continent has the biggest regional share of crude oil production?
    Middle East with 30.6%
  6. What does OPEC stand for?
    Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
  7. How many countries have at least 60% of the world's crude oil reserves?
    13
  8. Which countries has the most crude oil reserves?
    Saudi Arabia 25% and Canada 15%
  9. What controls most of the world's oil supplies?
    OPEC
  10. What are the possible effects of steeply rising oil prices
    • Reduce energy waste
    • Shift to non-carbon energy sources
    • Higher prices for products made with petrochemicals
    • Higher food prices; buy locally-produced food
    • Higher airfares
    • Smaller more fuel-efficient vehicles
    • Upgrade of public transportation
  11. Which country uses more oil than it produces?
    • United States
    • It produces 9% of world's oil but imports 60%
  12. What major sources of energy do we use?
    • 3/4 Nonrenewable fossil fuels
    • The rest from nonrenewable nuclear fuel and renewable sources
  13. What is net energy?
    The amount of high-quality usable energy available from a resource after the amount of energy needed to make it available is subtracted
  14. Which country consumes energy the most?
    • United States
    • Followed by western Europe , Japan and China
  15. What is renewable energy?
    Resources that can be replaced or regenerated and will never run out (at least not for a very long time)
  16. What is nonrenewable energy?
    Resources will eventually run out - once used they cannot be used again
  17. What are fossil fuels?
    Carbon-based materials that formed over millions of years from the remains of ancient plants and animals
  18. Examples of fossil fuels
    • Coal
    • Oil
    • Natural gas
  19. Why are fossil fuels important?
    • Industrial societies rely on fossil fuels as the main source of its energy
    • They contain stored chemical energy, which is converted into large amounts of useful heat energy when the fuels are burned
  20. How do fossil fuels produce electricity?
    • 1. Fuel is burned and the heat produced is used to boil water
    • 2. The high-pressure, superheated steam created is used to turn the turbine
    • 3. The turbine turns a generator which generates electricity
    • 4. The cooling towers cool the steam which condenses as water and can be recycled in the power station
    • 5. The natural gas is burnt and the hot gases produced are used directly to turn the turbine
  21. What are the energy changes in a coal or oil power station?
    • Input energy
    • Chemical
    • Kinetic
    • Electrical
    • Heat
    • Output energy
  22. What do we get from oil?
    • Petroleum or crude oil (conventional oil)
    • Fossil fuels (crude oil and natural gas)
    • Oil extraction and refining (gasoline, aviation fuel, heating oil, diesel oil, asphalt)
    • Petrochemicals (products of oil distillation)
    • World oil consumption
  23. What are the advantages of oil?
    Conventional oil has a high net of energy yield and relatively inexpensive
  24. What are the disadvantages of oil?
    • Using conventional oil causes air and water pollution and releases greenhouse gases to the atmosphere
    • Heavily oils from oil sand and oil shale exist in large supplies but have low net energy yields and higher environmental impacts than conventional oil has
  25. What waste do fossil fuels produce?
    • Carbon dioxide (main waste)
    • Sulfur dioxide and nitric oxides (contribute to smog and acid rain)
    • Ash
  26. What are the advantages of conventional oil?
    • Ample supply for 93 years
    • Low cost
    • High net energy yield
    • Easily transported between countries
    • Low land use
    • Technology is well developed
    • Efficient distribution system
  27. What are the disadvantages of conventional oil?
    • Need to find substitutes within 50 years
    • Large government subsidies
    • Environmental costs
    • Artificially low price encourages waste and discourages search for alternatives
    • Pollutes air when produced and burned
    • Releases CO2 when burned
    • Water pollution
  28. Why does Shale oil causes more environmental problems than oil shale rock?
    Because of its low yield
  29. What are the advantages of heavy oils from oil shale and oil sand?
    • Moderate cost
    • Large potential supplies
    • Easily transported
    • Efficient distribution system
    • Technology well-developed
  30. What are the disadvantages of heavy oils from oil shale and oil sand?
    • High cost
    • Low net energy yield
    • Environmental costs
    • Large amount of water needed for processing
    • Severe land disruption
    • Severe water disruption
    • Air pollution and CO2 pollution when produced and burned
  31. What makes natural gas useful and clean-burning fossil fuel?
    • It is a mixture of gases
    • More than half of is Methane
  32. What do we get from conventional natural gas?
    • Pipelines
    • Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)
    • Liquefied natural gas (LNG) - low net energy yield
  33. What are the advantages of conventional natural gas?
    • Ample supplies
    • High net energy yield
    • Low cost
    • Less air pollution than other fossil fuels
    • Lower CO2 emissions
    • Easily transported by pipeline
    • Low land use
    • Good fuel for fuel cells, gas turbines and motor vehicles
  34. What are the disadvantages of conventional natural gas?
    • Nonrenewable resource
    • Releases CO2 when burned
    • Government subsidies
    • Environmental costs
    • Methane can leak from pipelines
    • Difficult to transfer
    • Can only shipped across ocean
  35. What are the advantages of coal?
    • Conventional coal is very plentiful and has a high net energy yield and low cost
    • Well-developed technology
    • Air pollution can be reduced with improved technology
  36. What are the disadvantages of coal?
    • Conventional coal has a very high environmental impact
    • Gaseous and liquid fuels produced from coal have lower net energy yields and higher environmental impacts
    • Severe land disturbance, air pollution and water pollution
    • Severe threat to human health
    • Large government subsidies
    • High CO2 emissions
    • Radioactive particle and toxic mercury emissions
  37. Why is coal important?
    • It comes in several forms
    • Burned mostly to produce electricity
    • Burned in 2100 power plants, generates 40% of the world's electricity
  38. What are the three largest coal-burning countries?
    • China
    • United States
    • Canada
  39. Environment costs of burning coal (Why is coal a dirty fuel?)
    • Severe air pollution
    • Sulfur released as SO2
    • Large amount of soot
    • CO2
    • Trace amounts of mercury and radioactive materials
    • Dirtiest fossil fuels to burn
  40. What is the slowest-growing energy source?
    Nuclear Power
  41. Why is nuclear power expected to decline more?
    • Uses a lot of money
    • Poor management
    • Low net yield of energy of the nuclear fuel cycle
    • Safety concerns
    • Need for greater government subsidies
    • Concerns of transporting uranium
  42. What is nuclear fuel?
    It is used to generate electricity but it does not burn and so it does not release any greenhouse gases
  43. What is nuclear fission?
    Splitting of atoms and releasing huge amounts of heat energy
  44. What is the worst nuclear power plant accident in the world?
    Chernobyl, Ukraine
  45. What are the advantages of nuclear fuel cycle?
    • Large fuel supply
    • Lowe environmental impacts
    • Moderate land disruption and water pollution
    • Moderate land use
    • Low risk of accidents
  46. What are the disadvantages of nuclear fuel cycle?
    • Huge government subsidies
    • Low net energy yield
    • High environmental impact
    • Risk of catastrophic accidents
    • No widely acceptable solution for long-term storage of radioactive wastes
    • Subject to terrorist attacks
  47. What waste does nuclear power produce?
    • Radioactive waste
    • Uranium (separated from waste and reused)
    • Plutonium (highly-radioactive product; used in the construction of nuclear bombs)
  48. Why is dealing with radioactive wastes difficult?
    High-level radioactive wastes must be stored safely for 10,000-240,000 years
  49. Where to store radioactive wastes?
    Deep burial (safest and cheapest)
  50. Solutions to nuclear waste
    • Can be turned into glass
    • Bury deep underground (few suitable sites)
    • Dump at the bottom of the sea
  51. What is the power of the future?
    Nuclear fusion
  52. What is solar energy?
    Energy that comes form the sun
  53. How can you collect solar energy?
    Through photovoltaics and heat engines
  54. What is photovoltaics?
    It is the direct conversion of light into electricity at the atomic level
  55. What is photovoltaic cell?
    A device that converts sunlight into direct current through photoelectric effect
  56. Who was the first man who noted the photoelectric effect?
    Edmund Bequerel in 1839
  57. Who constructed the first PV cell?
    Charles Fritts in 1880
  58. What is the first usage of PV cell?
    Vanguard 1 satellite in 1958
  59. Why did the price of photovoltaic price declined?
    Increase in oil price and increase in production of PVs
  60. What is wind power?
    • 2% of sun energy is converted to wind energy
    • Differential heating of the earth's surface and atmosphere induces vertical and horizontal air currents that are affected by the earth's rotation and contours of the land
  61. What is windmill?
    It captures wind energy and then uses a generator to convert it to electrical energy
  62. What does large wind turbines do?
    • Deliver electricity at lower cost than smaller turbines
    • Well suited for offshore wind plants
  63. What does small wind turbines do?
    • Local electrical grids
    • Lower costs
    • Landscape considerations
  64. How much can a wind turbine produce?
    Between 1/4 to 2MW of electrical power
  65. What is Hydroelectric?
    • Largest source of electricity from renewables
    • Needs guaranteed supply of water
  66. What rotates turbines?
    Kinetic energy
  67. How much electricity does hydropower plants produce?
    24% of the world's electricity and 1 billion people
  68. How does hydropower plants work?
    They harness water's energy and use simple mechanics to convert that energy into electricity
  69. What are the basic components of conventional hydropower plant?
    • Dam
    • Intake
    • Turbine
    • Generators
    • Transformer
    • Power lines
    • Outflow
  70. What is a dam?
    It holds back water, creating a large reservoir which is often used as a recreational lake
  71. What is the most common type of turbine?
    Francis Turbine
  72. Examples of geothermal energy sources
    • Hot water reservoirs
    • Natural stem reservoirs
    • Geopressured reservoirs
    • Normal Geothermal gradient
    • Hot dry rock
    • Molten magma
  73. Direct uses of geothermal energy (for sources below 150 celcius)
    • Space heating
    • Air conditioning
    • Industrial processes
    • Drying
    • Greenhouses
    • Aquaculture
    • Hot water
    • Resorts and pools
    • Melting snow
  74. Examples of direct uses
    • Ground heat collectors
    • Borehole heat exchange
  75. Generation of electricity appropriate for sources more than 150 celcius
    • Dry steam plants
    • Flash steam plants
    • Binary cycle plants
    • Hot dry rocks
  76. What are the geothermal's harmful effects?
    • Brine can salinate soil if the water is not injected back into the reserve after the heat is extracted
    • Can cause land subsidence and can lead to an increase in seismic activity
    • Power plants that do not inject the cooled water back into the ground can release H2S, which is fatal when inhaled
    • Noise pollution from drilling of wells
  77. What are the advantages of geothermal?
    • Useful minerals can be extracted
    • Will create more jobs
    • Can be online 100% of the time
    • Less C02 emissions
    • Do not require a lot of land
  78. Where can we find geothermal energy?
    Regions near volcanoes, hot springs and fumaroles
  79. Which is the most successful country in using geothermal energy?
    Iceland
  80. What is the first commercial wood-burning plant?
    ARBRE
Author
katbaguisi
ID
238051
Card Set
Energy
Description
quiz and finals
Updated