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Chapter 17: Nonrenewable Energy

P. 434-44917.1 Energy Resources and Fossil Fuels

17.2 Nuclear Energy

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Key Terms

• Fossil fuels• Electric generator• Petroleum• Oil reserves• Nuclear energy• Nuclear fission• Nuclear fusion

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17.1 Energy Resources and Fossil Fuels

• List five factors that influence the value of a fuel• Explain how fuels are used to generate electricity in an

electric power plant• Id patterns of energy consumption and production in

the world and in the United States• Explain how fossil fuels form and how they are used.• Compare the advantages and disadvantages of fossil-

fuel use.• List 3 factors that influence predictions of fossil-fuel

production.

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Energy Resources and Fossil Fuels

• Most of the energy we use today came from the sun 200 million years ago in the form of natural resources or fossil fuels

• Fossil Fuels- remains of ancient organisms that changed into coal, oil or natural gas

• Two problems:1. They are limited2. Environmental impact to obtaining themNeed to find alternative energy sources or better ways to

use them!!

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Fuels for Different Uses

• Transportation, manufacturing, heating and cooling buildings, generating electricity

• Suitability of fuel depends on- availability, safety, byproducts, cost and supply/demand (jet fuel vs wood)

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Electricity- Power on Demand

• Most is converted into electrical energy because it is more convenient to use

• But it has difficulties-1. Difficult to store2. Have to use other energy resources to generate

it (cost)

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How is Electricity Generated?

• Electric Generator- machine that converts mechanical energy, or motion, into electrical energy.

• Use a Turbine- wheel that changes the force of moving gas of liquid into energy that can do work.

• Power plants- 1. water is boiled to produce steam that turn the turbine2. Water is heated by burning fuel in coal-fired and gas

fired plants or by fission of uranium in nuclear plants3. Turbine spins a generator to produce electricity.

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Coal- Fired Power Plant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_CcrgKLyzcHow do you make electricity from coal - animated video (9mins)

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Energy Use

• Every thing we use today requires the use of energy to make the cost of energy is reflected in the price

• World patterns:• developed countries use more energy • US and Canada use more than Japan or

Switzerland-> yet incomes are flipped• Dependent on how energy is generated and

used in each country

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Energy use in the US• Uses more energy per person than any other

country besides Canada and United Arab Emirates

• 25% goes to transport goods and people, while Japan and Switzerland has rail system in addition they use hydroelectric or nuclear power

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How Fossil- Fuel Deposits Form

• Dependent on Geologic history • Coal Formation- remains of plants that lived in swamps

hundreds of MYA. • Today’s coal formed 300 to 250 myahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBeXRRTGjNE

• Oil and Natural Gas Formation – the decay of tiny marine organism that accumulated on the bottom of the ocean mya, most is located in Alaska, Texas, California, Gulf of Mexico

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SmSNRTU1Vw

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Coal

• Tends to be inexpensive and little refining • More than ½ of our electricity comes from

coal-fired power plants• Coal Mining and the Environment- surface and

subsurface, air pollution(sulfur/acid rain), water pollution

• EPA webpage http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/coal.html

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Petroleum• Oil pumped from the ground or crude oil• Locating oil deposits:– Gets trapped into Earth as it moves, commonly

found in folds, faults, salt domes that are bound by impermeable layers

– Mostly found in Middle East– Large deposits are also in US, Venezuela, North Sea,

Siberia, Nigeria– Use exploration wells to determine volume if show

profitable rate will remove and send off to be refined into fuels and other products

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Environmental Effects of using Oil

• When burned they will release pollutants.• Vehicles release pollutants when burning oil,

produce smog and can cause health problems• Catalytic converters reduce air pollution• Old car produce more sulfur leads to acid rain, also

release of carbon dioxide increase global warming• Oil spills- require tankers to be doubled hulled,

increase response time to clean up• Cars leaking oil getting into waterways

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Natural Gas- methane (CH4)

• About 20% of the world’s nonrenewable energy comes from natural gas.

• In past it was just burned off and not used• “clean” energy• Now store in pipelines and compressed tanks

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Fossil Fuels and The Future

• 90% of the energy used in developed countries• By 2050 the demand will have doubled due to

increase populations and industry cause the cost to also increase need to find alternative energy resources

Predicting Oil Production- – Oil reserves- oil deposits that can be extracted profitably at

current prices using current technology– Need new technologies to find new reserves and be

extracted – Relative cost of obtaining fuels influences the amount of

fossil fuels that we extract from Earth

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Future Oil Reserves

• No large reserves have been discovered in the past decade

• Was expected to peak by 2010• Many reserves are in the ocean but it is too

difficult to drill and more expensive, need for new technologies or would be too expensive

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17.2 Nuclear Energy

• Describe nuclear fission• Describe how a nuclear power plant works• List 3 advantages and 3 disadvantages of

nuclear energy

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17.2 Nuclear Energy

• 1950-1960’s energy of the future, its was clean and there was a lot of it

• 1970-1980’s canceled 120 plans for plants, 40 were partly constructed and abandoned

• Only 17% of worlds energy comes from Nuclear Energy today (2004)

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Fission: Splitting Atoms

• Nuclear energy- the energy within the nucleus of an atom

• Nuclear fission- splitting of the atom by bombarded with neutrons (Uranium 235)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzI2Hg9_gO4 15 mins • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v8i4v1mieU 3 mins funny

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How Nuclear Energy Works1. Nuclear reactor is surrounded by a thick

pressure vessel that is filled with a cooling fluid2. Pressure vessel is designed to contain the

fission products in case of an accident3. Thick concrete walls also surround reactors4. Reactor- metal fuel rods that contain solid

uranium pellets are bombarded with neutrons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx_oXd3SV0g)

5. Chain reaction occurs to release more energy

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How Nuclear Energy Works

6. Reactor core contains control rods (made of boron or cadmium) will absorb the neutrons to prevent an uncontrolled chain reaction

(lowered between fuel rods slows reaction if lowered completely it will stop)

7. Heat release during nuclear reaction is used to generate electricity

8. Energy released heats a closed loop of water that heats another body of water, that boils and will produce steam ant that steam will drive the turbine generates electricity

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Nuclear Power Plant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTnfXLws40Q7mins

The Advantages of Nuclear Energy

• Concentrated• No air pollution• Release less radioactivity than coal-fired • France generates ¾ of its electricity, produces

less than 1/5 of air pollution per person than the US, US uses 70% on Fossil fuels

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Why Aren’t We Using More Nuclear Energy?

• Expensive to build “safe” reactors• Cost more than $3,000 per kilowatt of electrical capacity,

wind power $1,000, natural gas is $600Store Waste-• Where do we put the radioactive waste when we are

done?? Must be geologically stable for tens of thousand of years

• Yucca mountain in Southern Nevadahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDgBUwhUAVE• Transmutation- recycle radioactive elements in nuclear fuel

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Safety Concerns• Poor design get out of control• Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986- worst nuclear

reactor accident, Engineers turned off most of the reactor’s safety devices to conduct an unauthorized test. The test caused explosions that destroyed the reactor and blasted tons of radioactive materials into the air

• Many died from radiation exposure• Areas of Northern Europe and Ukraine still

contaminated

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Safety Concerns

• Us does not sue that type of model• In 1979 the Three Mile Island nuclear pp in

Pennsylvania, Human error and blocked valves and broken pumps, only small amounts of radioactive gas escaped

** US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has required more than 300 safety improvements to nuclear power plants

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Inside Chernobyl

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lkxKlFbmio 16mins

Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident Documentary Film (46 mins)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeAX5TtuXoY

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The Future of Nuclear Power• Fusion- lightweight atomic nuclei combine to form a

heavier nucleus and release tremendous amount of energy

• Same energy that powers stars • Potentially a safer energy source than fission it creates less

dangerous radioactive wastes• Technical difficulty of achieving it is difficult

– Atomic nuclei must be heated to extremely high temperatures– Nuclei must be maintained at very high concentrations and

properly confined– Must be done simultaneously and its extremely difficult most

likely will never happenFission vs fusion- http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6Hm1QoDYY