“Using Wind Power in New Ways for an Old Application”1:
How was the voyage of the Beluga SkySails different than traditional industrial ship voyages? Since wind provided most of the power in the ship and the rest came from marine diesel engines.
Introduction to Alternative Energy Sources
2: Fossil fuels supply approximately 90% of the energy consumed by people
3: What are the two types of non-renewable alternative energy sources? Why are they considered to be non-renewable?Nuclear energy and geothermal energy, are considered to be non-renewable because heat that is extracted from the Earth faster than it is naturally replenished that is, output exceeds input.
4: What is low-density, near-surface geothermal energy? Solar energy stored by soil and rocks near the surface, widespread and easy to obtain by the sun.
5: What are biofuels made from? Biomass (crops, woods, etc.)
6: What is the definition of “renewable” energy? Energy that is regenerated by the sun within a time period useful to people.
Solar Energy
7: How much solar energy is equal to the energy stored in a all known reserves of coal, oil and natural gas on Earth? 10 weeks of solar energy.
8: What are passive solar energy systems? Give an example. Do not use mechanical pumps or any active technologies to move air or water. An example would be Islamic architects, they use passive solar energy in hot climates to cool down buildings.
9: What are active solar energy systems? Give an example. Requires mechanical power, such as electric pumps to circulate air, water from solar collectors to a location where the heat is stored and then pumped to where the energy is used. An example would be solar collectors.
10: What are solar collectors? What are they used for? How do they work? Provide space heating or hot water are usually flat, glass-covered plates over a black background where a heat-absorbing fluid is circulated through tubes.
11: What are photovoltaics? What are they made out of? Explain how they work. Convert sunlight directly into electricity, the system use solar cells, called photovoltaic cells that are made of thin layers of semiconductors and solid-state electronic components with few or no moving parts.
12: What are solar thermal generators? How do they work? Generators that makes the water boil in the container and is used to run machines.
13: What are some of the environmental concerns of solar energy? Large variety of metal, glass, plastic, and fluids that are used in manufacture and use of solar equipment.
14: What are fuel cells? How are they created? Highly efficient power-generating systems that produces electricity by combining fuel and oxygen in an electrochemical reaction
Water Power
15: Water power has been around since when? Since the 18- 19th century
16: How much power in the United States is currently powered by hydroelectricity? 10 percent
17: What is microhydropower? Where is this helpful? Is site-specific, depending on local regulations, economic situations and hydrologic limitations.
18: What are the environmental benefits of hydroelectricity? It can be used to store energy through the process of pump storage.
19: What are the environmental consequences of hydroelectricity?Interferes with freshwater ecosystems including fish habitats and take away from landscape beauty.
Ocean Energy
20: Explain how we can harness tidal power. A dam must be built across the entrance to a bay or an estuary, that created a reservoir.
21: What are some of the environmental impacts of tidal power? The dam changes the hydrology of a bay or an estuary, restricting upstreams, affecting the vegetation and wildlife.
Wind Power
22: What is the major problem with using wind power? It tends to be highly variable in time, place and intensity.
23: How are winds produced? Different heating contents and densities
24: How does topography influence winds? Explain. Due to the increase in wind velocity over a mountain due to a vertical convergence of wind. The shape of the mountain is often related to the local or regional geology.
25: Which regions in the United States have the greatest potential for wind power development? Mid-West where there are a lot of farms and space
26: Which country has the largest wind energy capacity installed? The United States
27: Modern wind turbines are big- as much as 70 m high, as tall as a 23 story building, and have a generating capacity of more than 1 million watts. This is enough electricity for 500 modern U.S. homes.
28: What are the disadvantages to wind power for the environment? It can possibly kill birds, it may degrade an area's scenery.
29: What is the future outlook for wind energy generation? Wind energy supplies 1.5 percent of the world and the growth rate is more than 30 percent. It is said that wind power can supply 10 percent of the world's electricity in the coming decades.
Biofuels
30: What are the 3 categories of biofuels? Firewood, organic wastes and crops
31: How many people worldwide still use wood as their primary source for energy? 1 billion people in the world still use wood as their primary source for energy.
32: What are some of the benefits of using biofuels? Using waste as a fuel is a good way to dispose of them.
33: What are the environmental concerns with the using of biofuels? Can pollute the air and degrade the land, shortage of firewood is affecting natural areas and endangering species.
Geothermal Energy
34: What are the two types of geothermal energy and how do they differ? Deep-earth, high density and shallow-earth and low-density.
35: How many people worldwide depend on geothermal as their energy source? 40 million people depend on geothermal energy as their energy source
36: What type of location is ideal for high-density geothermal energy? Give an example. Occurs near plate tectonics, such as Russia, Japan, New Zealand, and Iceland.
37: Where is low-density geothermal energy mostly found? Why? It is used in costal areas with moderate climates
38: What are the PROS and CONS of using geothermal energy? PROS: Releases 90 percent less carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, it does not require large-scale transportation of raw materials. CONS:Produces thermal pollution from the hot wastewaters, uses onsite noise and emissions of gas.
39: What types of government incentives might encourage use of alternative energy sources? Would their widespread use affect our economic and social environment? The EPA, environmentalists, organizations that support the use of alternative energy.
Chapter #17- Nuclear Energy and the Environment
1: How much of the world’s electricity do nuclear power plant provide? 17 percent
2: In the United States, nuclear power plants produce about 20% of the country’s electricity and about 8% of the total energy used.
3: The nuclear power plants in France provide 80% of the country’s total energy
What is Nuclear Energy?
4: What is nuclear energy? Energy that is contained in an atom's nucleus.
5: What is the difference between fission and fusion? Fission is the splitting of atomic nuclei, while fusion is the combining of atomic nuclei.
6: Nuclear reactors use fission (fusion or fission?) and which product as a source of radioactivity?
7: Which type of Uranium is used for nuclear power plants? Uranium-238
8: What does it mean that the Uranium is “enriched”? It means that uranium is enriched when the concentration is increased, thus using it as a fuel.
9: What is a nuclear “meltdown”? A nuclear accident in which the coolant system fails, thus allowing the nuclear fuel to become so hot that it forms a molten mass that breaches the contaminate of the reactor.
10: Reactors that use ordinary water as the coolant are called: Light water reactors.
11: Draw and label a diagram below to explain the nuclear power plant set-up:
A Closer Look: Radioactive Decay12: What is a radioisotope? A form of a chemical element that spontaneously undergoes radioactive decay
13: What is radioactive decay? Radioisotopes changes from one isotope to another and emits one or more kinds of radiation
14: What is a half-life? What is the half-life of Uranium 235? Time required for one-half of a given amount of the isotope to decay to another form. Uranium has a half life of 700 million years.
15: Define the following types of nuclear radiation: (Explain the safety measures needed when using each)
* Alpha Particle: 2 protons and 2 neutrons; in air they can travel approx. 5-8 cm, in living tissues about 0.005-0.0008 cm.
*Beta Particle: Electrons with a mass of 1/1, 840 of a proton
* Gamma Rays: When gamma decays, gamma rays occur which is a type of electromagnetic radiation that is emitted from the isotope.
16: Uranium goes through a radioactive decay chain to finally become which element? Lead-206
Nuclear Energy and the Environment
17: What are the major problems associated with the nuclear fuel cycle?
Nuclear Radiation in the Environment, and it’s Effects on Human Health18: How does nuclear radiation effect ecosystems? Explain and give an example. By emitting radiation that affects other materials and by entering the normal pathways of mineral cycling and ecological food chains. The explosion of a nuclear weapon instantly kills organisms.
19: Radiation is found naturally in what kind of materials? Give 2 examples. Rocks and soils; granite and organic shale
20: Where in the United States are background radiation levels higher? Colorado
21: In what ways are people exposed to radiation in their every day lives? Flying at high altitudes, working at a nuclear power plant, living next to a nuclear power plant
A Closer Look: Radiation Units and Doses
22: What is the commonly used unit for radioactive decay? Who is it named after? Curie (Ci), it is named after Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, who discovered radium in the 1890's.
23: What is the SI unit for radioactive decay? International System, of measurements is the unit commonly used for the radioactive decay of the becquerel
24: When dealing with the environmental effects of radiation, we are most interested in the actual dose of radiation delivered by radioactivity. This dose is commonly measured in terms of rads (rd) and rems . In the international system (SI), the units are grays (Gy) and sieverts (Sv).
25: For gamma rays, the unit commonly used is the roentgen or in SI units, coulombus per kilogram (C/kg)
26: What is the LD50 dose of radiation in humans?
27: What happened to the women who worked in the watch factories in the early 1900’s? Employers painted watch dials with luminous paint, henceforth to make it sharper they would lick the the brushes thus swallowing radium. Many of the women died of anemia or bone cancer.
28: What are the health effects for workers in uranium mines? Higher rates of lung cancer
Nuclear Power Plant Accidents
29: What is the current risk of a nuclear meltdown in the U.S. according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission? One chance in 10,000
Three-Mile Island
30: When did the event on Three-Mile Island occur? March 28, 1979
31: Where is Three-Mile Island located? It is located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
32: What were some of the societal issues associated with the incident at Three-Mile Island? It made the US look at nuclear power a whole different way since they believed that it was safe, which made the state of Pennsylvania unprepared for the incident.
Chernobyl
33: Summarize the events at Chernobyl, Soviet Union. On April 26, 1986 a nuclear power plant had an accident, but 2 days later in Sweden workers at their power plant were searching for levels of
radiation but soon the Soviet Union said that it was there accident due to the prevailing winds.
34: How many people died and how many people were diagnosed with acute radiation sickness? 237 acute cases and 31 people died
35: How many people were exposed to radiation in the days following the accident? 3 billion people were exposed to radiation
36: What was the most common type of illness that resulted from the Japanese A-bomb survivors? Leukemia
37: What was the most common type of illness that resulted from the Chernobyl accident? Childhood thyroid cancer per year.
38: What happened to the ecosystem around the affected area following the meltdown? Vegetation was killed or severely damaged, pine trees showed extensive tissue damage and still contained radioactivity
Radioactive-Waste Management
39: What is low-level radioactive waste? Where it is stored? Contains radioactivity in such low concentrations or quantities that it does not present a significant environmental hazard if properly handled. It has been buried in near-surface burial areas.
40: What is transuranic waste? How is it created? Waste contaminated by man-made radioactive elements, it is generated by from the production of nuclear weapons
41: What is high-level radioactive waste? Where is it stored? Consists of commerical and military spent nuclear fuel. They are being stored in storage tanks and other facilities in over 40 states in the US
42: What and where is Yucca Mountain? What was the plan with it? Yucca Mountain is located in Nevada, the plan is to bury nuclear waste underneath the mountain
43: What are the safety hazards associated with using Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste? Earthquake hazard, estimation of changes in the storage environment over long periods and the estimation of how long the waste may be contained and the types and rates of radiation that may be escaped from deteriorated waste container.
The Future of Nuclear Energy
44: How much Uranium stores do we have left? 4.7 million tons of Uranium left
45: What are the PROS and CONS of using Nuclear Power?
PROS:
CONS:
46: What are breeder reactors? Designed to produce new nuclear fuel by transforming waste into fissionable material.
How was the voyage of the Beluga SkySails different than traditional industrial ship voyages? Since wind provided most of the power in the ship and the rest came from marine diesel engines.
Introduction to Alternative Energy Sources
2: Fossil fuels supply approximately 90% of the energy consumed by people
3: What are the two types of non-renewable alternative energy sources? Why are they considered to be non-renewable?Nuclear energy and geothermal energy, are considered to be non-renewable because heat that is extracted from the Earth faster than it is naturally replenished that is, output exceeds input.
4: What is low-density, near-surface geothermal energy? Solar energy stored by soil and rocks near the surface, widespread and easy to obtain by the sun.
5: What are biofuels made from? Biomass (crops, woods, etc.)
6: What is the definition of “renewable” energy? Energy that is regenerated by the sun within a time period useful to people.
Solar Energy
7: How much solar energy is equal to the energy stored in a all known reserves of coal, oil and natural gas on Earth? 10 weeks of solar energy.
8: What are passive solar energy systems? Give an example. Do not use mechanical pumps or any active technologies to move air or water. An example would be Islamic architects, they use passive solar energy in hot climates to cool down buildings.
9: What are active solar energy systems? Give an example. Requires mechanical power, such as electric pumps to circulate air, water from solar collectors to a location where the heat is stored and then pumped to where the energy is used. An example would be solar collectors.
10: What are solar collectors? What are they used for? How do they work? Provide space heating or hot water are usually flat, glass-covered plates over a black background where a heat-absorbing fluid is circulated through tubes.
11: What are photovoltaics? What are they made out of? Explain how they work. Convert sunlight directly into electricity, the system use solar cells, called photovoltaic cells that are made of thin layers of semiconductors and solid-state electronic components with few or no moving parts.
12: What are solar thermal generators? How do they work? Generators that makes the water boil in the container and is used to run machines.
13: What are some of the environmental concerns of solar energy? Large variety of metal, glass, plastic, and fluids that are used in manufacture and use of solar equipment.
14: What are fuel cells? How are they created? Highly efficient power-generating systems that produces electricity by combining fuel and oxygen in an electrochemical reaction
Water Power
15: Water power has been around since when? Since the 18- 19th century
16: How much power in the United States is currently powered by hydroelectricity? 10 percent
17: What is microhydropower? Where is this helpful? Is site-specific, depending on local regulations, economic situations and hydrologic limitations.
18: What are the environmental benefits of hydroelectricity? It can be used to store energy through the process of pump storage.
19: What are the environmental consequences of hydroelectricity?Interferes with freshwater ecosystems including fish habitats and take away from landscape beauty.
Ocean Energy
20: Explain how we can harness tidal power. A dam must be built across the entrance to a bay or an estuary, that created a reservoir.
21: What are some of the environmental impacts of tidal power? The dam changes the hydrology of a bay or an estuary, restricting upstreams, affecting the vegetation and wildlife.
Wind Power
22: What is the major problem with using wind power? It tends to be highly variable in time, place and intensity.
23: How are winds produced? Different heating contents and densities
24: How does topography influence winds? Explain. Due to the increase in wind velocity over a mountain due to a vertical convergence of wind. The shape of the mountain is often related to the local or regional geology.
25: Which regions in the United States have the greatest potential for wind power development? Mid-West where there are a lot of farms and space
26: Which country has the largest wind energy capacity installed? The United States
27: Modern wind turbines are big- as much as 70 m high, as tall as a 23 story building, and have a generating capacity of more than 1 million watts. This is enough electricity for 500 modern U.S. homes.
28: What are the disadvantages to wind power for the environment? It can possibly kill birds, it may degrade an area's scenery.
29: What is the future outlook for wind energy generation? Wind energy supplies 1.5 percent of the world and the growth rate is more than 30 percent. It is said that wind power can supply 10 percent of the world's electricity in the coming decades.
Biofuels
30: What are the 3 categories of biofuels? Firewood, organic wastes and crops
31: How many people worldwide still use wood as their primary source for energy? 1 billion people in the world still use wood as their primary source for energy.
32: What are some of the benefits of using biofuels? Using waste as a fuel is a good way to dispose of them.
33: What are the environmental concerns with the using of biofuels? Can pollute the air and degrade the land, shortage of firewood is affecting natural areas and endangering species.
Geothermal Energy
34: What are the two types of geothermal energy and how do they differ? Deep-earth, high density and shallow-earth and low-density.
35: How many people worldwide depend on geothermal as their energy source? 40 million people depend on geothermal energy as their energy source
36: What type of location is ideal for high-density geothermal energy? Give an example. Occurs near plate tectonics, such as Russia, Japan, New Zealand, and Iceland.
37: Where is low-density geothermal energy mostly found? Why? It is used in costal areas with moderate climates
38: What are the PROS and CONS of using geothermal energy? PROS: Releases 90 percent less carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, it does not require large-scale transportation of raw materials. CONS:Produces thermal pollution from the hot wastewaters, uses onsite noise and emissions of gas.
39: What types of government incentives might encourage use of alternative energy sources? Would their widespread use affect our economic and social environment? The EPA, environmentalists, organizations that support the use of alternative energy.
Chapter #17- Nuclear Energy and the Environment
1: How much of the world’s electricity do nuclear power plant provide? 17 percent
2: In the United States, nuclear power plants produce about 20% of the country’s electricity and about 8% of the total energy used.
3: The nuclear power plants in France provide 80% of the country’s total energy
What is Nuclear Energy?
4: What is nuclear energy? Energy that is contained in an atom's nucleus.
5: What is the difference between fission and fusion? Fission is the splitting of atomic nuclei, while fusion is the combining of atomic nuclei.
6: Nuclear reactors use fission (fusion or fission?) and which product as a source of radioactivity?
7: Which type of Uranium is used for nuclear power plants? Uranium-238
8: What does it mean that the Uranium is “enriched”? It means that uranium is enriched when the concentration is increased, thus using it as a fuel.
9: What is a nuclear “meltdown”? A nuclear accident in which the coolant system fails, thus allowing the nuclear fuel to become so hot that it forms a molten mass that breaches the contaminate of the reactor.
10: Reactors that use ordinary water as the coolant are called: Light water reactors.
11: Draw and label a diagram below to explain the nuclear power plant set-up:
A Closer Look: Radioactive Decay12: What is a radioisotope? A form of a chemical element that spontaneously undergoes radioactive decay
13: What is radioactive decay? Radioisotopes changes from one isotope to another and emits one or more kinds of radiation
14: What is a half-life? What is the half-life of Uranium 235? Time required for one-half of a given amount of the isotope to decay to another form. Uranium has a half life of 700 million years.
15: Define the following types of nuclear radiation: (Explain the safety measures needed when using each)
* Alpha Particle: 2 protons and 2 neutrons; in air they can travel approx. 5-8 cm, in living tissues about 0.005-0.0008 cm.
*Beta Particle: Electrons with a mass of 1/1, 840 of a proton
* Gamma Rays: When gamma decays, gamma rays occur which is a type of electromagnetic radiation that is emitted from the isotope.
16: Uranium goes through a radioactive decay chain to finally become which element? Lead-206
Nuclear Energy and the Environment
17: What are the major problems associated with the nuclear fuel cycle?
- Uranium mills produce nuclear waste that can be exposed to workers and the environment
- Uranium-235 enrichment and the fabrication of fuel assemblies also produces radioactive waste that must be handled properly and disposed of.
- Construction and site selection is highly controversial in the United States.
- Power plant or reactor is the most highly concerned thing for the population
Nuclear Radiation in the Environment, and it’s Effects on Human Health18: How does nuclear radiation effect ecosystems? Explain and give an example. By emitting radiation that affects other materials and by entering the normal pathways of mineral cycling and ecological food chains. The explosion of a nuclear weapon instantly kills organisms.
19: Radiation is found naturally in what kind of materials? Give 2 examples. Rocks and soils; granite and organic shale
20: Where in the United States are background radiation levels higher? Colorado
21: In what ways are people exposed to radiation in their every day lives? Flying at high altitudes, working at a nuclear power plant, living next to a nuclear power plant
A Closer Look: Radiation Units and Doses
22: What is the commonly used unit for radioactive decay? Who is it named after? Curie (Ci), it is named after Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, who discovered radium in the 1890's.
23: What is the SI unit for radioactive decay? International System, of measurements is the unit commonly used for the radioactive decay of the becquerel
24: When dealing with the environmental effects of radiation, we are most interested in the actual dose of radiation delivered by radioactivity. This dose is commonly measured in terms of rads (rd) and rems . In the international system (SI), the units are grays (Gy) and sieverts (Sv).
25: For gamma rays, the unit commonly used is the roentgen or in SI units, coulombus per kilogram (C/kg)
26: What is the LD50 dose of radiation in humans?
27: What happened to the women who worked in the watch factories in the early 1900’s? Employers painted watch dials with luminous paint, henceforth to make it sharper they would lick the the brushes thus swallowing radium. Many of the women died of anemia or bone cancer.
28: What are the health effects for workers in uranium mines? Higher rates of lung cancer
Nuclear Power Plant Accidents
29: What is the current risk of a nuclear meltdown in the U.S. according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission? One chance in 10,000
Three-Mile Island
30: When did the event on Three-Mile Island occur? March 28, 1979
31: Where is Three-Mile Island located? It is located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
32: What were some of the societal issues associated with the incident at Three-Mile Island? It made the US look at nuclear power a whole different way since they believed that it was safe, which made the state of Pennsylvania unprepared for the incident.
Chernobyl
33: Summarize the events at Chernobyl, Soviet Union. On April 26, 1986 a nuclear power plant had an accident, but 2 days later in Sweden workers at their power plant were searching for levels of
radiation but soon the Soviet Union said that it was there accident due to the prevailing winds.
34: How many people died and how many people were diagnosed with acute radiation sickness? 237 acute cases and 31 people died
35: How many people were exposed to radiation in the days following the accident? 3 billion people were exposed to radiation
36: What was the most common type of illness that resulted from the Japanese A-bomb survivors? Leukemia
37: What was the most common type of illness that resulted from the Chernobyl accident? Childhood thyroid cancer per year.
38: What happened to the ecosystem around the affected area following the meltdown? Vegetation was killed or severely damaged, pine trees showed extensive tissue damage and still contained radioactivity
Radioactive-Waste Management
39: What is low-level radioactive waste? Where it is stored? Contains radioactivity in such low concentrations or quantities that it does not present a significant environmental hazard if properly handled. It has been buried in near-surface burial areas.
40: What is transuranic waste? How is it created? Waste contaminated by man-made radioactive elements, it is generated by from the production of nuclear weapons
41: What is high-level radioactive waste? Where is it stored? Consists of commerical and military spent nuclear fuel. They are being stored in storage tanks and other facilities in over 40 states in the US
42: What and where is Yucca Mountain? What was the plan with it? Yucca Mountain is located in Nevada, the plan is to bury nuclear waste underneath the mountain
43: What are the safety hazards associated with using Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste? Earthquake hazard, estimation of changes in the storage environment over long periods and the estimation of how long the waste may be contained and the types and rates of radiation that may be escaped from deteriorated waste container.
The Future of Nuclear Energy
44: How much Uranium stores do we have left? 4.7 million tons of Uranium left
45: What are the PROS and CONS of using Nuclear Power?
PROS:
- Does not contribute to global warming
- Does not cause air pollution
- Safer than any other means of generating power
CONS:
- Expensive
- Takes space - Habitat and places that we mostly go
- Can cause acid rain
- Nations may use it as a path to nuclear weapons
46: What are breeder reactors? Designed to produce new nuclear fuel by transforming waste into fissionable material.