ENERGY Flashcards
Term
Definition
Energy Services
Services in which energy is required to provide even the most basic resources such as food, water, air, or energy itself. Energy is used in every aspect of our economy, society, and prospects for the future, and so understanding the role of energy requires understanding how it links to all of these aspects of the world around us.
Distribution
A complete calculus of the benefits, costs, risks, allocations within a population. Distribution gives us information to help us better determine prospects for our future relationship to welfare and energy would be required in order to understand the welfare impacts of our energy choices. Welfare refers to prosperity and living standards as measured by notion of “utility”.
Energy Intensity (E/GDP)
Energy (E) per unit of GDP. The relationship of how much output can be created with each unit of that energy. Energy Intensity has fallen over the years because we are getting more energy efficient.
Energy Consumption
the amount of physical units of energy used (usually measured in volumes)
Energy Productivity (GDP/E)
The concept of Energy Intensity is closely related to Energy Productivity (GDP/E), which is simply its inverse. It reframes GDP as a function of energy, and it is often used as a measure of comparative productivity across countries.
Systems Thinking
Energy is best understood as a set of interconnected systems, which are collectively referred to as the Energy System. Collectively, the object of analysis becomes these system elements and within them are many parts, sub-systems, and interactions. Such Systems Thinking is a distinct from the traditional marginal analysis that populates much of economics and social sciences.
System Dynamics
An examination of the systems and all its integral parts. It gives us information for how the system behaves and responds to stimuli, etc.
System Structure
the system can be viewed as a collection of components at any given moment in time. These components have natural groupings and relationships and can provide a geographic “map” of the system structure
Transformations
Once the system structure is established, it is useful to understand the transformations within that structure as time passes or elements change. The strength of these relationships and the direction in which they flow can explain dynamic behaviors. Systems are best understood not in how they are, but in how they change.
Non-linearities
Sometimes, dramatic change can occur but only after a while and in a non-linear way. Systems often exhibit the behavior of maintaining themselves until certain thresholds are reached and then system dynamics can radically alter the behavior to a very different mode. Observing and predicting these non-linearities reveals much about the system itself.
Root Cause
When trying to explain the reason that certain observations occur, there are many levels on which that explanation can proceed. Sometimes there is an immediate reason, but that reason is usually motivated by other, deeper relationships in a system. An apt analogy is evaluating the symptoms versus the disease, and uncovering the underlying “root cause” of the observed phenomenon can be enabled using system dynamics.
Supply Chain
This represents all of the energy in the human-industrial system – from total energy inputs to final energy consumption and energy services (outputs) –and is the basis of the energy system analysis. It also includes the physical delivery system (“Infrastructure”) to move and transform the energy from its origin to its final disposition.
Circular vs. Directional Systems
Circular systems, as the macro-economy is often modeled, has many interrelated elements that can exhibit a balance and feedback keeping the various elements in check. It is often difficult to discern the beginning and the end of a circular system process, just like the old chicken and egg problem. In contrast, directional systems tend to have a distinct beginning in a distinct end, usually with very distinct and different inputs and outputs. They start with some inputs and go through a series of transformations resulting in outputs, but the outputs don’t stay in the system or recycle in any significant way.
Innovation
Within the system (Supply, Efficiency (Demand), Cost, or Benefit) there are many incentives and opportunities to try to procure more energy inputs and use them more efficiently to create outputs. Constraints compel people to invention and creativity in trying to create additional advantage for themselves in the form of reduced costs or increase profits.
Depletion
We tend to procure the cheapest and easiest resources first, leaving the more expensive ones for later. Competitors are constantly trying to take away market share, which keeps prices in check. This notion of Depletion (of resources or capacity or value) is a very normal economic behavior whereby we minimize costs first, but that uses up a scarce opportunity that may not necessarily be replaced or renewed.
Sustainability
depletion is making things more difficult and threatening a collapse of wealth and welfare if we damage or exhaust our resource base before we can innovate to another path. The very notion of Sustainability tries to reconcile these issues.
Present Value vs. Future Value
The easiest way to conceptualize the impact of growth rates is to understand how the value of anything today (Present Value) increases by a certain periodic rate (denoted here as compound interest, or i) over a number of periods (time, or t), to determine its value at the end of those periods (Future Value).
Energy
the “living force,” or the internal motion that appears to animate things; the ability to do work; whether kinetic or potential, there is an amount of energy available in the system that can perform the work when properly directed. This is the same energy that is neither created nor destroyed once it is in the system. It is a total volume (or stock) of energy available to do work.
Primary Energy
energy sources available in nature, including Biomass (potential, chemical) - used by animals and humans for food or fuel, Fossil Fuels (potential, chemical) - includes coal, oil, natural gas; a special form of ancient biomass that has been transformed by heat and pressure underground; considered non-renewable due to the vast geoligic timescale over which they are formed, Nuclear (potential, nuclear) - resident in all atoms but difficult to liberate, Hydropower (kinetic, motion), Tidal (Kinetic, motion) - the gravitational pull on oceans creates tidal fluctuations that can be harnessed, Wind (kinetic, motio) - air flow that can be harnessed through mechanical devices, Geothermal (kinetic, thermal) - heat of the earth that can be harnessed passively and actively, Solar (kinetic, electromagnetic) - used in both thermal and electricity generation, Animal (kinetic, motion) - human or non-human; harnessed as kinetic energy. When used as food, they represent potential energy.
Secondary Energy Carriers
energy that is used but not available in primary form in the environement, includes electricity, refined fuels, hydrogen, and other synthetic fuels. Also known as “energy carriers”
Primary Energy Production
Aggregates the primary energy produced by all suppliers; World energy production over the past two centuries shows that aggregate energy use is growing dramatically but has become more diversified across various primary energy sources over time.
Scenario
a term different from forecast, which establisheds a relationship suggesting if the input variables are true, then the output parameters should be what the model suggests
Power
the rate at which energy is physically transformed; power is denominated as an instantaneous rate of transformation of energy