Study Guide for Chapter 14, Nonrenewable Energy
1. Define the term “Nonrenewable Energy”. (hint: how did I define renewable and nonrenewable?)
2. What are the 3 predominant fuels used today? How would you define “Fossil Fuel”? (see glossary)
3. When you burn any fossil fuel what major greenhouse gas is produced? What other pollutants are produced?
4. Can the Less Developed Nations (LDC) achieve success the same way we did? Explain your answer.
14.1 Energy Use
5. What was the chief source of energy 200 years ago? What sources do we use today?
6. What % of our energy needs is supplied by fossil fuels today?
7. Is nuclear energy renewable? Explain your answer.
8. What is the major source of energy for most industrial nations?
9. The U.S. consumes what proportion of the world’s energy? How does this compare to Japan’s use?
10. Note the Energy profiles shown in Fig. 14-2 for sources and users of energy in the U.S.
11. Compare the sources of energy between the MDCs and the LDCs. (Fig. 14-3)
14.2 What is Energy?
12. What is the definition for energy? 13. Be able to define The 1st Law of Thermodynamics.
14. Be able to define The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. I gave you a definition of “Entropy”, what is it?
15. What is the original source of all energy on this planet? (Fig.-14-4)
14.3 Fossil Fuels: Options
16. What is crude oil? 17. What is the controversy in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge all about?
18. Name 4 products we get from “Cracking” crude oil.
19. The combustion (burning) of hydrocarbons can result in what air pollutants besides carbon dioxide?
20. Natural Gas is mostly ______. 21. Compared to coal, natural gas reduces CO2 emissions by ____ %
22. What is “Flaring” and what problems arise from it?
23. What is the most abundant fossil fuel on earth?
24. Be able to describe the process of Surface Mining (strip mining) and its impacts on the environment.
25. Be able to describe the process of mining underground and its impacts.
26. What is black lung disease? 27. What is Acid mine Damage? 28. What are Mine Tailings?
29a Coal is burnt in the USA mostly to produce ______.
29b A 1000 megawatt coal-fired power plant will provide electricity for how many people?
30. How much coal does it burn in each year? 31. How many train car loads of coal a day is this? (I told you)
32. What kind of pollutants are produced? What damages do they cause? 33a. What is “Fly Ash”?
33b What is the purpose of smokestack scrubbers? What is a major problem they present?
34. What % of the coal burnt is left-over waste ashes? ( I told you).
35. How many tons of waste does a 1000 megawatt plant produce a year?
36. What is the amount of total waste produced in the U.S.? What is done with this waste?
37. What so we get from Oil Shale and why would it be difficult to use it?
38. What is the story with Tar Sands?
39. Coal could also be gasified or liquefied to produce ______. What are the problems in doing this?
14.4 Fossil Fuels: Future Demands
40. What does “Ultimate Production” mean? How much oil is this?
41. At the current rate of consumption, how long would the remaining oil last?
42. But, oil consumption is increasing by ____ % per year.
43. What will happen to the price of oil as the supply dwindles?
44. Why is the cost of food directly related to the cost of oil? (my lecture)
45. Is the U.S. approaching or past its peak oil production? (Fig. 14-11a)
46. Where are we with respect to the world’s peak oil production?
47. Where are most of the world’s oil reserves located? 48. What happened in 1973 and 1979?
49. Can’t we simply find more oil?
50. How long the global supplies of natural gas expected to last? 51. What is the situation here in the U.S.?
52. Where are most of the world’s supplies of natural gas?
53. When is global production of natural gas expected to peak?
54. How long will the proven reserves of coal be expected to last?
55. What % of the proven coal reserves does the U.S. have? How long will these reserves last us?
56. What is the “Dirtiest Fossil Fuel”?
14.5 nuclear Energy
57. How much of their total energy needs do Canada and the U.S. get from nuclear energy?
58. What is the fuel for most atomic energy plants?
59. The atomic # of an element tells us how many _____ are in its nucleus. (my lecture)
60. The atomic weight of an atom is the sum of all its _____ & ______.
61. What are isotopes? 62. Why are some isotopes unstable? 63. What do isotopes do to become more stable?
64. What is the heaviest naturally occurring element? What is its atomic # and Wts.?
65. Be able to describe the various forms of radiation and their significance. What is “Ionizing Radiation”?
66. What is Fission? 67. One kilogram of U-235 is equal to ______tons of coal.
68. Read and understand “Nuclear Fission” as shown in Fig. 14-17
69. What are daughter nuclei and control rods?
70. Compare the cost of building a nuclear power plant and the price of its electricity to that of a coal-fired plant.
71. What are some of the “Drawbacks” of nuclear power?
72. The health effects of radiation poisoning are determined by the ____ and the _____ of exposure.
73. What are some of the health generalizations’ about radiation poisoning?
74. What are the impacts of High-Level Radiation exposure? 75. What are they for Low-Level exposure?
76. What are the problems with Bioaccumulation of radionucleotides?
77. Where does Strontium-90 accumulate in our body? What is its ½ life in years?
78. What is meant by “Half-life”?
79. What was “The Rasmussen Study” all about? 80. What did this study fail to include?
81. What is the ½ life of P-239? How many half-lives does it take for radioactivity to be at a safe level?
82. How much high-level nuclear waste was there in 1995? How much in 2005? Is there a problem?
82a. What does our government propose to do with this waste? What has Russia done with some of theirs?
83. What is a “Breeder Reactor” as explained in the textbook and shown in Fig. 14-22.
84. How long would it take such a reactor to break even financially?
85. If the core should melt down what would happen?
86. What is nuclear fusion? 87. What is its major drawback?
88. How do they propose to contain the nuclear reactions?