Primary Energy and World Energy Issues Flashcards
What is commonly refered when talking about energy resources?
Primary Energy Resources
What is primary energy energy?
The energy forms that we use before we convert them to our uses
What sources of primary energy are they?
- Coal
- Gas
- Solar
- Wind
- Tidal
- Wave
- Bio mass
- Nuclear energy
- Geothermal
Energy is conservered?
Primary energy -> Consumption Conversion (Heating, Electricity, Transport, Storage)
-> Heat
The world energy consumption are dominated by which energy resources?
- Coal
- Gas
- Oil
(aka fossil fuels)
What are some factor for the increased energy consumption?
Increased population and standard of living -> increased energy use.
As living standards increase a greater use of cars, electrical equipment, more
comfortable living environments, more leisure time, more foreign travel are desired requiring greater energy use.
How many years of coal, gas and oil are there if usage remains the same?
Coal - 100 years
Gas - 50 years
Oil - 30 years
What will happen with the population?
The population is forecast to rapidly increase over the next 50-70 years, peak and then decrease.
2050 will the population be 9.7 billion (now 7 billion).
Largest increase in Africa and Asia and not so much in Europe and North America.
What happens if the average global tempature increases beyond 2 degrees?
Then irreversible changes in global climate will occur. This could occur to 2050.
How much does the CO2 production have to decrease to prevent this?
80% decrease
What is climate change and why is it happening?
The the tempature of the atmosphere is slowly increasing because the use of fossil fuels. Which produce a number of heat radiation absorbing gases.
Because the atmospheric temperature is dependet on an energy balance which is dominated by the ability of the atmosphere to absorb radiating energy any change in the atmosperic gas constitents potentially change the temperature.
What is done to prevent an irreversible climate change?
Governments have been setting out climate change strategies with targets sets in legislation ie. they have become acts of law which all future governments must try and achieve.
What is one of the problems with reducing the use of fossil fuels in electricity generation, transport and domestic?
Keeping the same energy consumption as in 2008 (200 GW) but changing from gas heating and gas/goa power to electrical heating /nuclear and clean coal station would require electricity generation increase from 20GW to 127 GW meaning in the UK:
- 80 new base load power stations
- Renewable power supply to increase 32 GW aka. 50x more that what it is now.
- Domestic heating to move to heat pump system or direct resistance heating
- Transport reductions by moving to electrical vehicles and behavioural changes
At what concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will the average global temperature exceed a 2-degree change relative to pre-industrial times?
Predictions indicate that if CO2 atmospheric concentrations exceed 450 g/m3 then this will occur.
