DF - Fuels of the future

Question 1

What does renewable mean?

Answer 1

It won’t run out.

Question 2

What more renewable fuels could we use?

Answer 2

Wind, solar and wave power.

Biofuels.

Question 3

Apart from being renewable, what is another benefit of using renewable fuels like wind, solar and wave power?

Answer 3

They are carbon neutral so don’t add greenhouse gases (or any other pollution) into the atmosphere.

Question 4

What are the objections of using wind, solar and wave power?

Answer 4

They’re not sufficiently reliable (it’s not always windy and sunny etc).

Takes an awful lot of wind turbines, solar panels or wave energy collectors to get even a fraction of the energy currently supplied by fossil fuels.

Question 5

What are biofuels made from?

Answer 5

Living matter over a short period of time.

Question 6

How is bioethanol made?

Answer 6

By the fermentation of sugar from crops such as maize.

Question 7

How is biodiesel made?

Answer 7

By refining renewable fats and oils such as vegetable oil.

Question 8

How is biogas produced?

Answer 8

By the breakdown of organic waste matter.

Question 9

What are examples of biofuels?

Answer 9

Bioethanol, biodiesel and biogas.

Question 10

What are biofuels described as being?

Answer 10

Carbon neutral as the carbon dioxide they produce when burnt is the carbon dioxide that the plants absorbed while growing.

Question 11

Why are biofuels described as being carbon neutral?

Answer 11

As the carbon dioxide they produce when burnt is the carbon dioxide that the plants absorbed while growing.

Question 12

What is a problem with switching from fossil fuels to biofuels in transport?

Answer 12

Petrol car engines would have to be modified to use fuels with high ethanol concentrations.

Question 13

What is a problem to do with growth that arises from switching from using fossil fuels to biofuels?

Answer 13

The land used to grow crops for fuel can’t be used to grow food meaning some places such as poorer developing countries may not be able to grow enough food as they are trying to make money by growing crops for fuels.

Question 14

How could hydrogen be used instead of fossil fuels?

Answer 14

Hydrogen gas can either be burned in a modified engine, or used in a fuel cell (this converts hydrogen and oxygen into water, and this chemical process produces electricity).

Question 15

What is an advantage of using hydrogen as a fuel?

Answer 15

Burning hydrogen has only water as a waste product.

Question 16

Apart from water, what can also be produced if hydrogen is burnt in air at high temperatures?

Answer 16

Oxides of nitrogen.

Question 17

Where can hydrogen be obtained from?

Answer 17

Seawater - but it takes energy to extract it.

Question 18

What determines how environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel is?

Answer 18

The method used to extract the hydrogen.

Question 19

What are the bad things about using hydrogen as a fuel?

Answer 19

There are difficulties in transporting and storing hydrogen. It is highly flammable and it has to be liquified due to the low energy to volume ratio of hydrogen gas.

It will also mean building a whole new fuel supply infrastructure (chemical plants to produce the hydrogen fuel, a network of refuelling stations, pipelines…).

Question 20

What must the UK do to ensure energy security?

Answer 20

Make sure that it will be able to get enough clean, affordable energy despite:

• increasing competition from other countries - higher prices.
• supplies potentially being disrupted due to various political issues - unstable or unfriendly governments, or terrorism.

Question 21

What does the UK government’s plan to ensure energy security involve?

Answer 21

Encouraging the public and industry to become more energy efficient.

Continuing to make use of our coal, oil and gas reserves.

Creating financial incentives to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Using more renewable energy.

Encouraging research of new energy sources.

Question 22

What is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology and what does it aim to do?

Answer 22

Aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by burying carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.

Question 23

How might financial incentives reduce pollution?

Answer 23

May make it more attractive to businesses to develop ways to reduce pollution as they may have to pay, for example,for each tonne of carbon they emit.

Question 24

Why are the decisions on reducing pollution different in different countries?

Answer 24

Due to land use and the culture and technologies already in place - Brazil has few oil resources but it does have large amounts of agricultural land and a good climate so they can concentrate more on growing crops in order to produce biofuels (the majority of cars in Brazil already run on fuels containing bioethanol).