Conventional Energy

History of Energy Use in United States- in order of supremacy.

Wood, slaves, coal, steam engine, and oil.

Undeveloped countries still use _________ as 90% of their energy source.
Amercians and Canadians (at 5% of the world population) use over _______ of the WORLD's available energy.
Hummer=Dummer. If we stopped driving gas hogs and living in sieves we could drastically reduce the amount of oil we use. Conservation is still the BEST response.
Each person in the US uses an average of 60 barrels of oil/year- most of which is _________.
The 20 richest countries (1/5 the world's population) use 80% of the world's gas, 65% of the world's oil and 50% of the coal produced each year.

Calorically:

Hunter-gatherers required 2500 cal/day
World consumption is 31,000 cal/day
US consumption is 108,000 ca/day (including oil)

Fossil Fuels- provide 64% of the worlds electricity. Made from fossilized remains of once living organisms buried for years under intense heat and pressure.

Oil (liquid form of petroleum)- our primary source of energy.

Oil is formed when ________________ accumulate at the bottom of the sea where oxygen is limited.
There it is _____________ transformed anaerobically into oil and gas by a process called maturation.
The ____________ the hydrocarbon molecule, the more solid it is. Less than 5 carbon atoms is gas. Huge numbers of carbon atoms turn into crude oil.
Geologists drill exploratory wells to find a "proven" reserve, a known large quantity of oil.
Measured in barrels which are equal to _________ gallons of oil.

We have a very vague idea of how much oil is left, but most estimates place our world reserves at ______ more years and US reserves at 25 years. The Hubbert peak theory predicts that the oil production will soon reach a peak and then decline rapidly. We reached peak world oil production in the mid-90's most likely. Iran and Saudia Arabia are a little touchy about informing us of EXACTLY how much oil they have. The US peaked in the ___0's.

Petrochemicals are chemicals refined from oil. They include plastic, synthetic fibers, medicine, wax, synthetic rubber, insecticides, fertilizers, detergents, __________!!!

Extraction from a reserve is done by pumping (first 25%), then another 50-60% is done by pressure extraction- whereby steam, salt water is pumped into the oil field and pushes out the oil. As oil prices rise it will be more cost effective to remove more of the oil from the field. Right now removing oil from tar sands and oil shale is cost ___________.

Oil prices in the US are heavily _____________ by the government. Europeans pay at least twice as much for oil.
The US imports more than _______ of its oil.

Coal- the most abundant fossil fuel

Most coal orginally formed from a dense swampy mat of decaying __________ during the Carboniferous period- 300 million years ago.

As plant material becomes buried it turns to _________ (5% carbon). Further compaction and burial create _________ coal which is 60% carbon. Coal has various grades depending on purity and degree of metamorphism. The least favorable is lignite, then ______________ (sedimentary, 75% carbon) then _____________ (metamorphic, over 90% carbon).

We have roughly _________ years left of coal supplies. It is the most abundant fossil fuel and creates over one half of our electricity in US.
Most of the coal supplies are in _______, Russia and __________.

Coal mining occurs through strip mining and underground mining. Underground mining requires shafts to be sunk to reach deposits. Networks of tunnels are created to reach the deposits and can be very unstable and dangerous. Stip mining is horrible for the environment. The earth is removed all the way to the coal seam. Hazardous slag heaps are created containing sulfur which can leach out and damage the water table.

Coal fired electric plants are only 30% efficient AND they emit tons of _________ and _______ into the air.. floating on the wind currents.... straight to NPZ!
__________ should be mandatory to remove sulfur from coal's combustion gases.

Natural Gas- the cleanest fossil fuel

Its convenient, cheap and _________ burning the the previous two fossil fuels. It emits considerably less _______ when combusted.
Only ____% of energy lost during conversion. (As opposed to _____% energy lost in an incadescent light bulb!)
Difficult to _________ as it has a tendancy to blow up if hit. If transporting must keep under pressure to keep in liquid form or put into pipelines.
2/3 of natural gas is burned off when activating an ______ well. Maybe they should rethink that.

Nuclear Fusion- the wishful thinking energy source

2 isotopes of light elements are forced together at high temperatures till they ______ to form a heavier nucleus.
It takes ______ million degrees C to fuse H into He. Forgetaboutit.
Too ________. Cars running on nuclear fusion keep on blowing up. A very annoying trait.

Nuclear Power- the worst idea ever

India and ________ create the most nuclear power
80% of _________'s energy comes from nuclear power

Designs and Disasters

Nuclear reactors have fuel rods of uranium and some kind of _________ rod (cadmium, boron, graphite) to absorb neutrons and ________ the chain reaction in the core inside a containment building, a heat exchanging material, steam generator, cooling system and a turbine. The greatest danger is a _________ system failure.

Types of reactors include- Boiling reactors, pressurized water reactors, heavy water reactors and graphite reactors.

After the Three Mile Island partial meltdown in Pennsylvania in 1979 and Chernobyl disaster in Russia in 1986 all new nuclear power plant construction projects in the US have been on ______.

Radioactive Waste Management

"Too cheap to meter!" (The original belief about nuclear energy)
Nuclear power was supposed to be a cheap and ________ solution for the projected natural oil and gas deposits being depleted.
A lot of the future projections for the use of nuclear power were made under the assumption that future advancements in technology would figure out a way to get rid of the __________.
1970-1974, 140 new reactors for power plants were ordered. Only forty of which were actually built.
Nuclear energy supplies ______% of power in the US, 8% world wide.

Nuclear power first developed in the 1950's after WWII, and the invention of the atomic bomb.
Scientists thought this would be a safe and renewable energy source, but it was proven dangerous to work around, and even minor accidents could have long lasting, and long ranging affects.

Technology did not catch up with the expectations of the scientists for disposing of the hazardous wastes.
Another major problem is that because the reactor can not be allowed to melt down, all the systems had to be ____________, making an extremely complex and delicate system that causes more accidents than it prevents.
Nuclear power plants need to be located next to an abundant source of _______ for the power plant. This harms the natural environment of the waterway, and poses great risk if the power plant were to leak nuclear waste. The Hudson river has _________ pollution from Indian Point.

How does our misunderstood friend work

The thing that makes something radioactive is the fact that it is an unstable isotope- it releases ___________ particles. All isotopes long to be stable. That is their goal in life. Most plants use 97% U-23__ and 3% U-23__.

These particles can alter animal DNA by mutating it in undesirable ways. Exposure to high levels of radiation creates bizarre types of __________.
When radioactive isotopes like U238 come in contact with neutrons, they break up into more stable isotopes releasing massive amounts of energy such as heat and light. This is called nuclear __________. It also releases more neutrons in the process creating a chain reaction.
The way this reaction is controlled is by the use of neutron __________ materials like water or graphite. When the operators want to _______ down the reaction, they put neutron absorbing material between the fuel rods. This material is removed if the reaction is to speed up.
The way the energy is harnessed is through the use of _________. The nuclear rods sit in a pool of water causing the ________ to become super heated. This heat is then transferred to another water pool that boils which then spins a _________ that spins a __________ that creates electricity.
... And there is no harmful air pollution- no NOx or SOx. Environmentalists are pessimists. Air pollution will kill us slowly, nuclear power will kill us within a few short days!
The half-life of uranium (the amount of time it takes for one ________ of uranium to decay) is 4.5 billion years! It would take _______ half lives for uranium to decay to a safe level.

Waste disposal aka just put it where no one will find it.

Waste is generated when the isotopes are first _________, and again when the isotopes are ________, and later when the spent isotopes are discarded. All the equipment that comes in contact with the isotopes also becomes __________.

Countries that use nuclear power have devised many interesting ways to get rid of the waste.

Some countries, ahh, like America, have chosen to store the waste on the nuclear reactor site for many years in dry ________ or _______ baths.
- Then the plans WAS move the nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This long term storage facility is between two active _________ lines, above a major aquifer! The Obama administration nixed that idea!!!!
Other countries, like Russia took the NIMBY approach, and decided to transport the waste to unprotected cites that are easily accessible by hostile peoples. They even dumped a bunch of nuclear waste on the bottom of the _________ Ocean!