Botkin & Keller: Environmental Science: Earth as a Living Planet- 8th Ed.

Guided Reading: Chapter 16: Alternative Energy and The Environment

Name: _______________________________________________________
Read: 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?
Introduction to Alternative Energy Sources
2: Fossil fuels supply approximately ______% 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?
4: What is low-density, near-surface geothermal energy?
5: What are biofuels made from?
6: What is the definition of renewable energy?
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?
8: What are passive solar energy systems? Give an example.
9: What are active solar energy systems? Give an example.
10: What are solar collectors? What are they used for? How do they work?
Nuclear and Geothermal, non-renewable because it consumes more than it produces.
90
It had a xed mast that had to be monitored.
Indirect sources of solar energy.
Types of renewable energy, that are not that efcient.
Wind, water, and solar energy,
Building that can be designed to take advantage of solar energy. Collecting heat in cooler climates.
It requires air and water circulating.
Ten weeks.
Simple designs pass tubing over dark colored panels to heat uids.
11: What are photovoltaics? What are they made out of? Explain how they work.
12: What are solar thermal generators? How do they work?
13: What are some of the environmental concerns of solar energy?
14: What are fuel cells? How are they created?
Water Power
15: Water power has been around since when?
16: How much power in the United States is currently powered by hydroelectricity?
17: What is microhydropower? Where is this helpful?
18: What are the environmental benefits of hydroelectricity?
19: What are the environmental consequences of hydroelectricity?
Ocean Energy
20: Explain how we can harness tidal power.
21: What are some of the environmental impacts of tidal power?
Sunlight directly into electricity, thin layers of semiconductors
and a solid-state electronic components with few or no moving parts.
Focus sunlight onto water-holding containers.
Water boils and is used to run conventional steam-driven electrical
generators.
Is low impact, but the material are toxics.
Hydrogen fuels, when H recombined with O, electrons ow between
positive and negative poles.
Long history.
10% of total electricity production.
Electrical power produced by large dams.
Water clean, not burning fuels.
Flood land, and blocks sh migration.
Its challenging, but creating a dam.
Changes hydrology of bay.
Restricts passage of sh.
Wind Power
22: What is the major problem with using wind power?
23: How are winds produced?
24: How does topography influence winds? Explain.
25: Which regions in the United States have the greatest potential for wind power
development?
26: Which country has the largest wind energy capacity installed?
27: Modern wind turbines are big- as much as ______ m high, as tall as a _____ story
building, and have a generating capacity of more than ______ watts. This is enough
electricity for _______ modern U.S. homes.
28: What are the disadvantages to wind power for the environment?
29: What is the future outlook for wind energy generation?
Biofuels
30: What are the 3 categories of biofuels?
31: How many people worldwide still use wood as their primary source for energy?
32: What are some of the benefits of using biofuels?
It variates, but increases hills tops.
Solar heat produces uneven heating of the atmosphere, causing movements as convection and wind.
Its direction and density.
California.
Western Europe.
70 23
1 mill.
500
It kills birds, noise, and ugly.
There are likely to grow, and the cost would variate.
Firewood
Organic wastes
Crops grown to be converted into liquid fuels.
1 Billion.
More jobs, efciently.
33: What are the environmental concerns with the using of biofuels?
Geothermal Energy
34: What are the two types of geothermal energy and how do they differ?
35: How many people worldwide depend on geothermal as their energy source?
36: What type of location is ideal for high-density geothermal energy? Give an example.
37: Where is low-density geothermal energy mostly found? Why?
38: What are the PROS and CONS of using geothermal energy?
39: What types of government incentives might encourage use of alternative energy sources?
Would their widespread use affect our economic and social environment?
Can pollute the air and degrade the land.
Deep and shallow energy, one is low and the other high.
40 millions.
Areas of high heat ow occur at plate boundaries.
Ground waters, because of the temperature.
Cons: Disturbance of land, emission of gas, on-site noise.
Pros: Renewable, not very pollutant.
The ones that can get something from it, that can nd this project benecial.
Those who want to save the earth in a eco-friendly way.
Chapter #17- Nuclear Energy and the Environment
1: How much of the worlds electricity do nuclear power plant provide?
2: In the United States, nuclear power plants produce about ____% of the countrys
electricity and about _____% of the total energy used.
3: The nuclear power plants in France provide _____% of the countrys total energy.
What is Nuclear Energy?
4: What is nuclear energy?
5: What is the difference between fission and fusion?
6: Nuclear reactors use _________ (fusion or fission?) and which product as a source of
radioactivity? ____________________
7: Which type of Uranium is used for nuclear power plants?
8: What does it mean that the Uranium is enriched?
9: What is a nuclear meltdown?
10: Reactors that use ordinary water as the coolant are called: ____________________
11: Draw and label a diagram below to explain the nuclear power plant set-up:
17%.
20
8
78
Energy contained in the atoms nucleus.
Fission splitting of atomic nuclei.
Fusion fusing or combining of atomic nuclei.
ssion.
Commercial Energy.
Nuclear ssion.
Processing to increase concentration of U235.
Nuclear system which falls.
Moderators.
A Closer Look: Radioactive Decay
12: What is a radioisotope?
13: What is radioactive decay?
14: What is a half-life? What is the half-life of Uranium 235?
15: Define the following types of nuclear radiation: (Explain the safety measures needed when
using each)
* Alpha Particle:
* Beta Particle:
* Gamma Rays:
16: Uranium goes through a radioactive decay chain to finally become which element?
Nuclear Energy and the Environment
17: What are the major problems associated with the nuclear fuel cycle?
Unstable isotopes that are radioactive.
Way to measure radiation.
Half time require for a isotope to decay. For Uranium is 700 million years.
Of great mass, two protons and a neutron. A safety measure is to stay away.
Electrons travels through air, with a sheet of metal it can be block.
Most penetrable, safety measure if to use a thick shield.
Lead 206.
Mining operation produces radioactive tailings and exposes workers to rather high doses of radiation.
Nuclear Radiation in the Environment, and its Effects on Human Health
18: How does nuclear radiation effect ecosystems? Explain and give an example.
19: Radiation is found naturally in what kind of materials? Give 2 examples.
20: Where in the United States are background radiation levels higher?
21: In what ways are people exposed to radiation in their every day lives?
A Closer Look: Radiation Units and Doses
22: What is the commonly used unit for radioactive decay? Who is it named after?
23: What is the SI unit for radioactive decay?
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 _____ and ______. In the international system (SI), the units are ______ and
________.
25: For gamma rays, the unit commonly used is the ____________ or in SI units, ___________
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 1900s?
28: What are the health effects for workers in uranium mines?
Power plants and radioactive waste, it can enter and
affect the ecosystem.
Soil and rock, ex/ granite and shale.
Florida.
While ying planes, comic rays, and X-ray.
Number of radioactive particles that decay per unit time, curie. Named after Marine Curie.
Becquerel (Bq), which is one radioactive decay per second.
rads rems.
gray
siervest.
roentgen Coulombs.
5 siervest. 5,000 mSv
She died for bone cancer.
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?
Three-Mile Island
30: When did the event on Three-Mile Island occur?
31: Where is Three-Mile Island located?
32: What were some of the societal issues associated with the incident at Three-Mile Island?
Chernobyl
33: Summarize the events at Chernobyl, Soviet Union
34: How many people died and how many people were diagnosed with acute radiation
sickness?
35: How many people were exposed to radiation in the days following the accident?
36: What was the most common type of illness that resulted from the Japanese A-bomb
survivors?
37: What was the most common type of illness that resulted from the Chernobyl accident?
38: What happened to the ecosystem around the affected area following the meltdown?
Sets performance goal for a single reactor at 0.01%.
March 28, 1979.
Near Harrisburg, PA.
It was fear.
Over heating, it uranium fuel melt.
4, 000 died, and 24,000 were diagnosed.
115,000 people.
Trees and vegetation damaged.
Leukemia.
Cancer.
Radioactive-Waste Management
39: What is low-level radioactive waste? Where it is stored?
40: What is transuranic waste? How is it created?
41: What is high-level radioactive waste? Where is it stored?
42: What and where is Yucca Mountain? What was the plan with it?
43: What are the safety hazards associated with using Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste?
The Future of Nuclear Energy
44: How much Uranium stores do we have left?
45: What are the PROS and CONS of using Nuclear Power?
46: What are breeder reactors?
Low concentration that is not very harmful to environment.
Muman-made radioactive elements heavier than uranium, create with:
Plutonium, americum, and einsteineum.
Commercial and military spent nuclear fuel, store in 40 site states.
Nevada, disposed of underground in deep geologic waste repository.
Natural processes might allows radiation to escape, terrorist, volcanic eruptions, and
earthquakes.
5%.
Pros: not potential global warming, or acid rain.
Cons: Safety issues, path to nuclear weapons.