Week 9: Alternative Energy, Beyond Fossil Fuels, Mineral Resources Flashcards
What is “Deep Decarbonization”?
A strategy to reduce the carbon emissions which involves:
- Energy efficiency
- Decarbonization of electricity supply
- Switching end use fuel to electric sources
What is “electrification” and what are its benefits?
The changing of the source of power from direct fossil fuel burning to electricity.
Creates options for power generation in the future.
There is a huge opp. to reduce non-renewable sources in the transportation sector: need vehicles to stop burning fossil fuels AND relying heavily on them!
What was the name of the first ever aircraft to fly around the world with no fuel?
Solar Impulse
What is an alternative to fossil fuel for cars?
Hydrogen fuel cells (renewable energy sources used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen).
This requires platinum, Pt, which requires a lot of E to extract.
What is the difference between “alternative” and “renewable” energy sources?
Alternative: produced (and reproduced) by the Sun or Earth within a time frame that is useful to people.
Renewable: generally inexhaustible and often associated with minimal environmental degredation.
Why is geothermal heat extraction NON-renewable?
If one draws the heat from the Earth too quickly, one can lose the capacity of the geothermal system.
List three examples of renewable energy.
- Hydropower
- Solar
- Wind
- Tidal
- Hydrogen
- Biomass or waste
- Biofuels
What are some of the concerns associated with wind power?
- Kills birds (?)
- Cost of generation due to large capital outlay
- Local climate change (?)
- Land for roads and windmill pads
- Degradation of scenic resources?
- Light and sound pollution
- Relies on surrounding weather, so how can we store energy when wind is not blowing?
What is a possible resource for biofuel, and what is its major advantage?
Create biofuel from switch grass; actually produces net negative emissions!
In 2018, nuclear energy consisted of ___% of the world’s electricity generation, while coal made up ___%.
10%, 38%
___% of Ontario’s electricity generation is nuclear.
59.0%
There are around ___ nuclear power reactors worldwide.
440
What are some concerns regarding nuclear power?
- Nuclear facilities are insanely expensive
- Public perception stifles nuclear power as an energy alternative
- Haven’t figured out a concrete way to get rid of nuclear waste
- Nuclear war and distaster
What are some sources of nuclear fuel?
Uranium-235 (fissile, 0.7% of natural uranium, half-life of 700 million years).
Plutonium-239 (forms from decay of U-238, highly fissile, half-life of 24,200 years)
Who is currently the world supplier for uranium-235?
Kazakhstan
Where is the world’s largest high-grade uranium mine?
MacArthur River, Saskatchewan.
Produced 7654 tonnes of uranium in 2010.
What are some of the factors associated with the perception the public has of nuclear energy?
- Nuclear disaster
- Clean energy
- War
- Waste
Nuclear energy consists of ___% of the fatalities due to energy production.
0.001%
How is nuclear waste typically contained?
- Nuclear waste is sealed in a cladding tube.
- Cladding tube is contained in a copper canister with a cast iron insert.
- The canister is placed in a crystalline bedrock body.
- The canisters and tubes are then stored ~500m underground (they can also be stored in pools)
Hydroelectric power is a function of _______ and _______.
Hydroelectric power is a function of HEIGHT and VOLUME.
What are some of the consequences of hydro-electric power?
- Reservoir sedimentation/pollution (N in failing water)
- Loss of land and wildlife to reservoir, changes to river ecology and downstream hydrology
- Damage and flooding of indigenous lands
- Loss of downstream aquifers and riverbank erosion
- Loss of livelihood from fisheries
What are some tools and technology behind mineral exploration?
- Research
- Geophysics
- Field mapping
- Exploration drilling
- Geochemical sampling
- Structural modelling
- 3D orebody estimation
- Confirmation drilling
What is “geochemistry”?
The search for indicator minerals in soil and rock using elemental isotopes to examine history in search for orebodies.
Describe a “mineral resource” vs. an “ore reserve”
Mineral resource: elements/compounds/minerals/rocks concentrated in a form that can be extracted
Ore reserve: a confirmed portion of resource that can be extracted for profit.
How may we confirm a mineral resource as an ore reserve?
Confirmation drilling! We must be absolutely sure there is a mineral deposit beneath the site we want to mine, as the more we drill for confirmation, the more expensive it becomes.
What are some of the characteristics of minerals off which their economic factors are based?
- Size and grade of the deposit
- Mineralogy (mining and processing feasibility)
- Metal price
- Corporate strategy
What drives mineral concentration in the crust?
Tectonics
Elements are concentrated in mantle through cooling when ocean crust forms; further distilled in new magma as crust and sediments are remelted in chemical stages; various volcanic reactions near surface concentrate again through condensation/precipitation.
What is an example of a volcanic deposit?
Kimberlite: an incredibly catastrophic geological phenomena capable of surfacing diamonds from the depths of the Earth’s crust.
Describe ore transport and deposition.
A process by which ore has been eroded from one primary source to be further concentrated and redeposited elsewhere (ex. when ore containing gold travels downstream, the ore sinks to the bottom because it weighs heavier and has a hire S.G.)
What is an “ore”?
Naturally-occurring mineral aggregate of economic interest.
What is a “mineral deposit”?
An abnormal concentration of minerals in the Earth’s crust.
Describe the process of magma cooling and gravitational settling.
Heavy minerals crystallize early and concentrate on the bottom of the magma chamber (heavier and have a higher S.G.)
How do porphyry orebodies form?
Fluids circulate through multiple magmatic intrusions, dissolving and precipitating Copper. Really complicated network of mineral veins caused by catastrophic mangling of the ore mass, which creates monstrous ore bodies called porphyry bodies.
What is Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS)
Hydrothermal groundwater dissolves metals in the presence of salt.
Black smokers are seawater gushes from the seafloor near spreading centres and precipitates sulphide deposits.
What is an astrobleme? Give an example.
A massive asteroid capable of shattering the Earth’s crust (the one in Mexico, and the one in Sudbury).
The one in Sudbury may be a source of nickel and, therefore, the source of the city’s mining economy. Rupture of crust created mineralized volcanic surges from below and the melting of Cu-Ni steroid.
List two examples of mining methods.
- Room and Pillar: mechanized room and pillar methods used for extraction (will have to sacrifice some of the ore to act as pillars though).
- Vertical Crater Retreat (VCR) mining: process is customized to fit the geometry of the environment. There are drill overcuts in the rock to hold it together for support, and then the rock is blasted that way.
- Cut and Fill: cut the floor as you mine upwards.
- Sub-level mining
- Vein mining (high-risk, involves mining tunnels on an angle with a hanging wall and a foot wall.
- Sublevel Caving: you have those above-ground steps 15m high, and then you have underground tunnels to mine.
- Block Caving: dig tunnels, blow up sections of rock, have the rock travel down the tunnels to be collected.
