the impact of the features of energy resources on their use Flashcards
how were technologies previously developed?
match to work with a particular energy resource
how do new technologies need to be altered?
might need tweaking to make them fully useable (wind power no storage)
what is an example of a new technology that needs some tweaking?
wind power as it cannot currently be stored
what is abundance?
how much of an energy resource there is
what isn’t abundance?
is not how much there is for use as some resources are very difficult to extract or too deep for extraction
how can abundance of a resource affect extraction?
as they become less abundant they become more valuable so more complex expensive extraction can take place
what is an example of an unconventional expensive way of resource extraction?
Fracking
what is energy density?
measures the amount of a energy in a given mass of an energy resource
what is the energy density scale? (most to least)
Nuclear fusion
nuclear fission
hydrogen
fossil fuels
wood
wave
wind
solar
how do you measure energy density of solar?
find out how much energy is harnessed per KG of solar panel
why is higher energy density more useful?
less has to be extracted to power what you need
easier to store and transport
can reach high temperatures needed in industry
why is wood not a particularly good energy resource?
not very energy dense it is heavy and takes up room to store and transport
why might low energy density not be useless?
can be a back up resource in the background can be used to turn into secondary energy
what are the local constraints of energy?
energy resources are not distributed evenly
sometimes sources are so small they can only be used locally
what is an example of a local constraint?
the UK doesn’t have abundant oil supply so oil is imported
what is intermittency
an energy resources that is not available at all times that it is needed
what is the problem with an intermittent energy?
difficult to rely on
what are some intermittent energy resources?
wind- not always blowing
solar- sun doesn’t shine 24/7
tidal- tides are not regular year round
why might energy need too be converted?
form that the energy is harvested is not always useful to us
what is an example of a useless energy unless its converted?
coal
why isn’t coal usefully by itself?
used to create heat
boil water making steam
turning a turbine to create electricity
cant individually power technology
What is Canada’s oil shale scale like?
Canadas is the third largest proven crude oil reserve on the globe (170.2 billion barrels of oil 11% of reserve, 1.9 million barrels a day)
