APES Unit 6-- Energy Resources and Consumption

Fossil Fuels

Fuels derived from biological material that became fossilized millions of years ago.

Nonrenewable energy source

An energy source with a finite supply, primarily fossil fuels and nuclear fuels.

Renewable energy resources

Sources of energy that are infinite.

Potentially renewable

An energy source can be regenerated indefinitely as long as it is not overharvested.

Nondepletable

An energy source that cannot be used up.

Commercial energy sources

Energy sources that are bought and sold, such as coal, oil and natural gas.

Subsistence energy sources

Energy sources gathered by individuals for their own immediate needs including straw, sticks, and animal dung.

Energy Intensity

The energy use per unit of gross domestic product (GDP).

Fossil fuel combustion

The chemical reaction between any fossil fuel and oxygen resulting in the production of carbon dioxide, water, and the release of energy.

Hubbert Curve

The graph that represents oil use and projects both when world oil will reach a maximum and when world oil will be depleted.

Peak oil

The point at which oil extraction and use would increase steadily until roughly half of the supply had been used up.

Energy conservation

Methods for finding and implementing ways to use less energy.

Energy efficiency

The ratio of the amount of energy expended in the form you want to the total amount of energy that is introduced into the system.

Energy return on investment (EROEI)

EROEI= energy obtained from the fuel/ energy invested to obtain the fuel

The amount og energy we get out of an energy source for every unit of energy expended on its production.

Biofuel

A liquid such as ethanol or biodiesel created from processed or refined biomass.

Modern carbon

Carbon in biomass that was recently in the atmosphere.

Fossil carbon

Old carbon contained in fossil fuels.

Carbon neutral

An activity that does not change atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Coal

A solid fuel formed primarily from the remains of trees, ferns, and other plant materials that were preserved 280 million to 360 million years ago.

Peat

A precursor to coal, made up of partly decomposed organic material including mosses.

Lignite

A brown coal that is a soft sedimentary rock that sometimes shows traces of plant structure, containing 60-70% carbon.

Bituminous coal (asphalt)

A black or dark brown coal that contains bitumen, or asphalt. It typically contains up to 80% carbon.

Anthracite (hard coal)

Contains greater than 90% carbon, and has the highest quantity of energy per volume of coal and the fewest impurities.

Natural gas

A relatively clean fossil fuel containing 90-95% methane and 5-20% ethane, propane, and butane.

Crude oil

A mixture of hydrocarbons like oil, gasoline, kerosene, as well as water and sulfur that exists in a liquid state underground and when brought to the surface.

Tar sands (oil sands)

Slow-flowing, vicious deposits of bitumen or asphalt, mixed with sand, water and clay.

Energy Carrier

An energy source such as electricity that can move and deliver energy in a convenient, usable form to end users.

Combined cycle

A feature in some natural gas-fired power plants that uses both a steam turbine to generate electricity and a separate turbine that is powered by the exhaust gases from natural gas combustion to turn another turbine to generate electricity.

Capacity

The maximum electrical output of something such as a power plant.

Capacity factor

The fraction of time a power plant operates during a year.

Congeneration (combined heat and power)

The use of a fuel to both generate electricity and deliver heat to a building or industrial power.

Fracking

Short for hydraulic fracturing, a method of oil and gas extraction that uses high-pressure fluids to force open existing cracks in rocks deep underground.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)

A type of organic compound air pollutant that evaporates at typical atmospheric temperatures.

Turbine

A device that can be turned by water, steam, or wind to produce power such as electricity.

Electrical Grid

A network of interconnected transmission lines.

Energy Quality

The ease with which an energy source can be used to do work.

Nuclear Power

Electricity generated from the nuclear energy contained in nuclear fuel.

Radioactivity

The emission of ionizing radiation or particles caused by the spontaneous disintegration of atomic nuclei.

Fission

A nuclear reaction in which a neutron strikes a relatively large atomic nucleus, which then splits into two or more parts, releasing additional neutrons and energy in the form of heat.

Fuel rod

A cylindrical tube that encloses nuclear fuel within a nuclear reactor.

Control rod

A cylindrical device inserted between the fuel rods in a nuclear reactor to absorb excess neutrons and slow or stop the fission reaction.

Radioactive decay

When a parent radioactive isotope emits alpha or beta particles or gamma rays.

Half-life

The time it takes for one half of the original radioactive parent atoms to decay.

Radioactive waste

Nuclear fuel that can no longer produce enough heat to be useful in a power plant but continues to emit radioactivity.

Becquerel (Bq)

A measurement of the rate at which a sample of radioactive material decays, one bq is equal to the decay of one atom per second.

Curie

A unit of measure for radiation, a curie is 37 billion decays per second.

Biomass

Biological material that has mass.

Charcoal

Woody material that has been heated in the absence of oxygen so water and some volatile compounds are driven off.

Particulates (particulate matter/ soot)

Solid or liquid particles suspended in the air.

Carbon monoxide

A colorless, odorless gas that is formed during incomplete combustion of most materials.

Nitrogen oxides

A by-product of combustion of any fuel in the atmosphere (which contains 78% nitrogen).

Carbon dioxide

A by-product of all combustion, carbon dioxide from biofuels contains modern carbon from woody material rather than fossil carbon from fossil fuels.

Biofuel

Liquid fuel created from processes or refined biomass.

Ethanol

Alcohol made by converting starches and sugars from plant material into alcohol and co2.

Biodiesel

A diesel substitute produced by extracting and chemically altering oil from plants.

Passive solar

A use of energy from the sun that takes advantage of solar radiation without active technology.

Active solar energy

A use of technology that captures and stores the energy of sunlight without electrical equipment and devices.

Photovoltaic solar cells

A use of energy from the sun as light, not heat, and converting it directly into electricity.

Hydroelectricity

Electricity generated by the kinetic energy of moving water.

Water impoundment

The storage of water in a reservoir behind a dam.

Run-of-the-river

Hydroelectricity generation in which water is retained behind a low, small dam or no dam.

Tidal energy

Energy that comes from the movement of water driven by the gravitational pull of the moon.

Siltation

Sediments from moving water that accumulate on the bottom of a reservoir.

Geothermal energy

Heat energy that comes from the natural radioactive decay of elements deep within earth.

Ground source heat pump

A technology that transfers heat from the ground to a building.

Fuel cell

An electrical-chemical device that converts fuel such as hydrogen into an electrical current.

Electrolysis

The application of an electric current to water molecules to split them into hydrogen and oxygen.

Wind energy

Energy generated from the kinetic energy of moving air.

Wind turbine

A turbine that converts the kinetic energy of moving air into electricity.

Phantom loads

Electrical demand by a device that draws electrical current, even when it is turned off.

Peak demand

The greatest quantity of energy used at any one time.

Passive solar design

Construction technique designed to take advantage of solar radiation without active technology.

Thermal mass

A property of a building material that allows it to maintain heat or cold.

Smart grid

An efficient, self-regulating electricity distribution network that accepts any source of electricity and distributes it automatically to end users.

Oxygenated fuel

A fuel with oxygen as part of the molecule.

Cellulosic ethanol

An ethanol derived from cellulose, the cell wall material in plants.