Nonrenewable Energy Sources and Energy Conservation

Flashcards about nonrenewable energy sources, their impacts, and energy conservation.

What is hydraulic fracturing (fracking)?

A drilling technique that involves drilling deep into the earth and angling the drill horizontally to extract natural gas from shale rock.

What are fossil fuels?

Highly combustible substances formed underground over millions of years from the buried remains of ancient organisms.

What is electricity?

A secondary form of energy that can be transferred over long distances and applied to many uses.

Define anaerobic environment in the context of fossil fuel formation.

An environment with little or no oxygen, necessary for organic material to break down over millions of years to form fossil fuels.

What is coal?

A hard blackish substance formed from organic matter compressed under very high pressure, creating dense, solid carbon structures.

What is crude oil?

Oil extracted from the ground before it is refined, consisting of a mix of hydrocarbon molecules.

What is natural gas?

A gas consisting primarily of methane (CH4) and lesser, variable amounts of other volatile hydrocarbons.

What are oil sands (tar sands)?

Moist sand and clay containing 1–20% bitumen, a thick and heavy form of petroleum.

What is oil shale?

Sedimentary rock filled with organic matter that can be processed into a liquid form of petroleum called shale oil.

What is methane hydrate?

An ice-like solid consisting of molecules of methane embedded in a crystal lattice of water molecules.

What is a proven recoverable reserve?

The amount of a fossil fuel that is technologically and economically feasible to remove under current conditions.

What occurs during the refining process?

Hydrocarbon molecules are separated by size and chemically transformed to create specialized fuels, lubricating oils, asphalts, and precursors of plastics.

What is the reserves-to-production ratio (R/P ratio)?

The amount of remaining reserves divided by the annual rate of production (extraction and processing).

What is peak oil?

The point in time when oil extraction reaches its maximum rate, after which it is expected to decline.

What is mountaintop removal mining?

A method where entire mountaintops are blasted away to access seams of coal.

What is directional drilling?

Technology that allows drillers to bore down vertically and then curve to drill horizontally, reaching more fuel with less impact.

What are clean coal technologies?

Techniques, equipment, and approaches that aim to remove chemical contaminants during the generation of electricity from coal.

What is carbon capture and storage?

An approach that involves capturing CO2 emissions, converting the gas to a liquid, and then storing it in the ocean or underground in a geologically stable rock formation.

What is energy efficiency?

The ability to obtain a given amount of output while using less energy input.

What is energy conservation?

The practice of reducing wasteful or unnecessary energy use.

What is energy intensity?

Energy use per dollar of Gross Domestic Product; lower energy intensity indicates greater efficiency.

What is cogeneration?

A process in which excess heat produced during electricity generation is captured and used to heat nearby workplaces and homes and to produce other kinds of power.

What is the rebound effect?

Gains in efficiency from better technology may be partially offset if people engage in more energy-consuming behavior as a result.

What is nuclear energy?

The energy that holds together protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.

What is nuclear fission?

The splitting apart of atomic nuclei, which drives the release of nuclear energy inside nuclear reactors.

Why is uranium processed?

The ore must be processed to enrich the concentration of 235U to at least 3% because more than 99% of the uranium in nature occurs as the isotope uranium-238, whereas less than 1% is uranium-235.

What is a meltdown?

Where coolant water drains from the reactor vessel, temperatures rise inside the reactor core, and metal surrounding the fuel rods melts, releasing radiation.