1. Chapter 17
Nonrenewable energy

2. Objectives Factors that influence the value of a fuel
How are fuels used to generate power?
Patterns of energy consumption
How fossil fuels form
Advantages/disadvantages
Production

3. Fossil fuels
What are they?
Decayed remains of older animals
How do we use them?
Everywhere

4. What do we use them for? 5 main uses Cooking Transportation
Manufacturing
Heating/cooling
Generating electricity

5. Electricity
Almost all power from fossil fuels is turned into electricity
With an electric generator
Converts mechanical energy to electrical energy
Uses a turbine
Moving conductive material within a magnetic field
The moving of the material gets the energy required from burning of fossil fuels
Eg burning coal makes heat, which turns water into steam, which turns the turbines

6. Energy
This energy is used everywhere, from consuming the energy directly yourself to the energy it cost to make a product
Price of most things include the cost of energy
Eg buying imported food, includes cost of fuel to get it to the store
energy use can vary wildly among countries
Canada and USA uses almost twice what japan does

7. Energy in USA
We use more energy per person than almost any other country
Why?
We are so big and so far away from most other countries that we have to transport everything
Most countries not as big as we are
Fuel and gas is widely available and cheap, so we don’t feel the need to conserve nearly as much as other countries

8. Fossil fuels Each fossil fuel has its advantages and disadvantages
Eg using firewood for an airplane
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9. How do they form? Coal Remains of plants covered by sediment
Heat and pressure compressed the remains and turned them into coal
How old?
million years ago for the “rust belt” states
Can be much younger, but still tens of millions of years old

10. How do they form? Oil and natural gas
Organisms on the bottom of the ocean
Heated after buried by sediments and moved into porous rocks
Oil in Texas, Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska
If under the ocean then why is it discovered on land as well?

11. Coal Coal is one of the most widely used fossil fuels
Huge deposits in USA and Asia
Almost half of energy produced in the United states from coal
Why?
Inexpensive
Doesn't need a lot of refining

12. Coal Environmental impacts Vary wildly
Underground mines are not very harmful to the environment
but this is the best case scenario
Sometimes the side of a mountain has to be excavated or blown off in order to reach the coal, which can be dangerous
Research is going into safer methods of extraction

13. Coal Varying grades of coals
Bituminous is high grade
Lignite is low grade
Higher grades of coal have less Sulfur which, when burned, produce less pollutants when burned than lower grade coals
Burning high sulfur coal is where you get Acid Rain from and serious air pollution
All burning of coal produces carbon dioxide which contributes to global warming, jut some coal is more efficient than others

14. How a coal power plant works

15. Petroleum Oil pumped from ground Many things are made from crude oil
Can you think of any?
Fuels
Chemicals
Plastics
Very common products we use every day

16. Finding the oil Found around major geologic features
Fault lines, folds, etc
Why?
Bound by impermeable layers of rock, which traps it
Oil is not the black liquid we see in the movies, at least not right away
Wells to find oil can be as far as 35,000 feet down into the Earth
Eg Deepwater Horizon
Why would we dig so deep?

17. Oil and its impacts Burning oil does release harmful pollutants
Can you think of any?
Carbon monoxide
Carbon dioxide
How do our cars move?
Burning gas and carbon monoxide comes out of our tailpipes
These can cause smog (like in china) and other long term health risks
Regulations as well as converters are helping to reduce this (white smoke in chimneys)
But in areas where this type of filters are too expensive or haven’t reached, it can be far worse

18. Oil spills
Oil spills can be a major problem
Eg Deepwater Horizon

19. Fracking
What is it?
Natural gas trapped in shales
How does it work?
Fluid pressure to fracture rocks so gas can flow
What makes it different?
More chemicals and more frequent

20. Fracking Benefits? Increased access, so really cheap once its out
Employment that cant be shipped away
Less pollution, but carbon footprint basically the same
Downsides?
More water contamination
Eg surface waters with methane \
Groundwater contamination
Lots of methane

21. Natural gas 20% of nonrenewable resources
Originally thought of as a nuisance
Now a valuable resource
Burns much cleaner than other fossil fuels
But is a much stronger greenhouse gas

22. The future
Fossil fuels supply 90% of the energy in developed countries
But energy demands may go up almost 30%
Why?
Increased population
Continued development

23. The future
This increased demand will increase demand for fossil fuels, and bring costs up
This will likely make alternate sources of power more desireable

24. Predicting oil Oil production is hard to predict
Oil reserves are deposits that can be extracted profitably
No new major deposits expected to be found
But some already known less profitable deposits may become more desirable as the major deposits dry up
Not considered now but if companies get desperate enough….
But at a point it will get too expensive and we will need alternative sources

25. Concept questions to turn in
What is the relationship between natural gas and petroleum?
Are fossil fuels produced today by the same processes as the past?
What do you think accounts for the increase in oil production in the past 50 years?

26. Name a type of fossil fuel and how we use it in every day life
Bell ringer
Name a type of fossil fuel and how we use it in every day life

27. How can you reduce pollution in your life?
Bellringer
How can you reduce pollution in your life?

28. How can you determine the grade of a coal?
bellringer
How can you determine the grade of a coal?

29. What are some forms of renewable energy?
Bellringer
What are some forms of renewable energy?

30. What is an advantage of fracking?
bellringer
What is an advantage of fracking?

31. Why would we use nuclear energy?
Bellringer
Why would we use nuclear energy?

32. why doesn't the USA use a lot of nuclear energy?
Bellringer
why doesn't the USA use a lot of nuclear energy?

34. Nuclear energy We need alternatives to fossil fuels
Once, nuclear power plants were thought to be the ultimate way to the future
Today about 14% of our energy comes from nuclear plants

35. Fission
Nuclear power plants get power from nuclear energy bound within the nucleus of an atom, hence its name
Forces that hold the nucleus together are ridiculously powerful
1 million times stronger than chemical bonds

36. Nuclear energy
Works very similar to a coal plant
Explained in video

37. Nuclear energy advantages
Very concentrated
No greenhouse gases
Not very much radiation
Contrary to belief
Good if you don’t have many fossil fuels
Eg france (3/4 of all energy)

38. Nuclear energy If tis so wonderful, then why don’t we use it?
Expensive
$3000 per kilowatt hour
Some plants can make kw per hour
Meanwhile, wind power can be about $1000 per kw hour
All of this can change with time

39. Disadvantages Big issue is storing nuclear wastes
Uranium fuel can remain dangerous for thousands of years
Used fuel, water, and equipment are also dangerous
Hard to store safely
Must be geologically stable
Makes some areas hard to use

40. Safety issues Controlled fission process can become out of control
Eg Chernobyl fukushima
Three-mile island was the biggest incident in the united states
Human error and faulty equipment

41. Future Fusion Safer, makes less byproducts
Lightweight nuclei come together to form heavier nucleus
In all stars
Safer, makes less byproducts
As of right now, technology is not quite ready yet
But someday…….
Possibly use nuclear reactors to make hydrogen

42. Name a way we will use nuclear energy in the future
Bellringer
Name a way we will use nuclear energy in the future