Environmental Issues
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| What are the three major sources of energy? | The fossil fuels: coal, natural gas, and oil.
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| What is the major use of oil? | Transportation
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| What is the major use of coal? | The production of electricity.
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| What is the major use of natural gas? | The heating of buildings.
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| How is coal formed? | Organic matter dies, falls into lakes and begins to decompose. Over millions of years the layers get thicker and are compacted, forming coal.
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| What is peat? | Partially decomposed vegetation; the beginning stage of coal.
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| What are the four stages of coal development? | 1. Peat
2. Lignite
3. Bituminous
4. Anthracite
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| What is the product of heating bituminous coal until it gives off water and gasses? Has a higher percentage of fixed carbon, burns hotter, used in steel making, and is very polluting. | Coke
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| "You get the biggest bang for your buck" with what fossil fuel? | Coal
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| Who are the biggest suppliers of coal? (3) | 1. Russia
2. China
3. USA
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| Where are the two major sites of coal in America? | the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains
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| Which is higher quality; the coal from the Appalachian Mountains or the coal from the Rocky Mountains? | Appalachian
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| What's the biggest advantage of using coal? | It's cheap and abundant.
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| What's the biggest disadvantage of using coal? | It's very polluting.
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| Explain bottom ash and how it's used. | The stuff left over from coal burning; clinkers and ash are used to cinder the roads in winter.
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| What are the two ways to mine coal? | 1. Underground aka Room/Pillar Mining
2. Strip Mining
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| What's strip mining? What issues go with it? | When you take off the top layer of soil to get at the underground layers. You have to deal with:
1. the leftovers (tailings)
2. the fact that the soils banks are acidic and stone so they cannot support life
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| What are tailings? | The piles of stuff left over from strip mining.
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| What is AMD, or Acid Mine Drainage? | Water gets to where the coal was and comes into contact with the sulfur that is still there. The water, now carrying sulfur, continue on, polluting the surroundings.
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| What is the difference between a brown out and a black out? | Brown out: reduction of power because of shortage, mechanical failure, or overuseage.
Black out: massive power failure when lack of electricity results in utter darkness
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| How is oil formed? | Microscopic organisms accumulate on bottom of oceans, compress, and heat up. Over time the material from inside the organisms' cells turn into a drop of oil.
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| Who has the most oil? | Middle East, i.e. Saudi Arabia
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| Earth has maybe ___ years of oil left. | 50
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| What is OPEC? | Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
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| One barrel of oil is equal to how many gallons? | 42
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| What fossil fuel is odorless, tasteless, and invisible? | Natural gas
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| Which country has the most natural gas? | Russia
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| How much natural gas is left if we keep up the current consumption rate? | ~125 years
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| Rank the fossil fuels from most to least in terms of how much is left on Earth. | 1. coal
2. natural gas
3. oil
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| How is most natural gas transported? | By pipeline
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| When we liquefy natural gas we get ___? | Propane
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| What are the two types of Air Pollution? | 1. Primary
2. Secondary
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| What is the Primary type of air pollution consist of? | The direct burning of fossil fuels.
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| What are the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning? | Sleepiness, dizzy, vomiting, DEATH
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| Which are more dangerous Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM); large or small particles and why? | Small; they're small enough to be able to get deep into the lungs and remain there
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| The Secondary type of air pollution is caused when...? | When primary type air pollution comes into contact with sunlight or water.
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| Where is Ozone good for us? Where is it bad? | Good in the upper atmosphere; bad at ground level.
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| True or False; the air is cleaner after it rains. | True; it cleans out the particles
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| What does Fluidized Bed Combustion do? | Burns coal cleaner; coal is ground into a powder, creating lots of surface space. It's then put into a furnace where air is pumped in from beneath. Burns completely.
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| What is a catalyst? | Allows a chemical reaction to happen easier.
i.e. at a lower temperature
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| What is the most-polluted city in the Western Hemisphere? | Mexico City
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| What state has the most power plant deaths? | Pennsylvania
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| What plant causes more deaths than any other? | Tobacco
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| When you smoke you are exposed to two pollutants. What are they? | The tobacco itself, and asbestos. Both cause cancer. Cancer chance x cancer chance
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| What is a good way to reduce indoor air pollution? | Get a plant, especially a spider plant.
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| How is acid rain created? | Sulfur and nitrogen oxides meet sunlight and water vapor
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| True or false; Acid rain is a sign that there is a problem. | False; acid rain happens naturally
i.e. lightning and nitrogen
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| What can acid rain do to aluminum? | Leaches it from its surroundings; washes into river/stream/ponds/lakes and kills life there.
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| What can acid rain do to trees? | Not usually acidic enough to cause a problem but it can affect insects which can cause disease in the tree.
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| What is acid rain affecting in Europe? | Statues that were made of marble are being eaten away.
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| What US city has greatly reduced its air pollution and improved its quality of like by building a light rail system instead of more highways? | Portland, Oregon
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| What makes a certain type of atom that certain type? | The amount of protons it has
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| True or False; most atoms and isotopes are stable but some are radioactive | True
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| What is fission? | The splitting of an atom which will result in a release of energy.
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| What is critical mass? | The amount of a substance needed to sustain an explosion.
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| What is a "dirty" bomb? | Chemical bomb that, once exploded, will become radioactive and the area will be rendered uninhabitable.
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| How much radiation is too much? | Trick question! No one really knows.
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| What is background radiation? | Radiation that we are exposed to all the time from the sun or Earth.
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| Where is the uranium located in a nuclear power plant? | In the fuel rods.
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| Why was the Shorham nuclear power plant shut down and dismantled after producing electricity for only 32 hours? | There were concerns whether surrounding areas could be evacuated in case of an accident.
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| Can a nuclear power plant blow up like an A bomb? Why or why not? | NO
1. Uranium fuel is not enriched enough
2. There isn't a critical mass
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| What happens during a steam explosion? | Super heated water will flash to steam and create a huge explosion (not atomic)
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| What happens during a melt down? | Reactor fuel gets so hot it begins to melt.
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| Was the Chernobyl incident a steam explosion or a melt down? | Steam explosion
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| Was the incident at TMI, human or computer error? | Human error
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| Was the TMI incident a steam explosion or a melt down? | Partial melt down
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| Who were the main casualties in the Chernobyl incident? | The firemen from overexposure to radiation.
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| Which is more dangerous; plutonium or uranium? | Plutonium; its highly fissionable
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| What do Breeder Reactors do? | Create extra fissionable material;
i.e. plutonium
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| Why are Breeder Reactors so unsafe? (4) | 1. Less stable (harder to control)
2. Use liquid sodium as a coolant (burns in contact with air; explodes in contact with water)
3. Terrorism (tons of weapons grade plutonium in the core)
4. Pipes break easier (running hotter)
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| What is the Price-Anderson law about? | Talks about what happens when we have a nuclear accident.
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| What is strict liability under the Price-Anderson law? | Negligence does not need to be proven, just that harm was done.
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| What is extraordinary nuclear accident under the Price-Anderson law? | Doesn't come into effect until the government calls it; never been used as of yet
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| What are the three types of nuclear waste in order of least-to-most radioactive? | 1. Uranium tailings
2. Low Level waste
3. High Level waste
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| Does one really have to worry about any of the classes of Low Level Waste? i.e. A, B, C | Yes, C class is practically High Level waste
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| What are the two High Level wastes? | 1. Spent fuel rods
2. Liquids left over from reprocessing
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| How do you rid of High Level wastes? | Spent fuel rods are stored in pools of water; some have been there long enough that they have been placed in concrete casts
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| What level of the government is responsible for disposing of High Level waste? | Federal
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| Where was the government supposed to build a permanent resting place for nuclear waste? | Yucca Mountain, Nevada
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| What group said that would host a monitored retrieval storage facility? | An old Indian tribe in New Mexico
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| What's the biggest issue concerning nuclear power plants? | The disposal of waste
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| How long, on average, do power plants last before they're torn down? | 30-40 years
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| What two countries have committed to nuclear power? | Japan and France
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| Fusion is the transformation of ___ to ___. | Hydrogen; helium
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| How does the sun create its energy? | Fusion
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| What's more powerful; fusion or fission? | Fusion
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| What is the main problem with fusion? | As of yet we can only get as much energy out of it as we put in to it. We're breaking even. Not a good power source.
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| Once we've perfected fusion what are the three advantages? | 1. Produces little radioactive waste
2. Plenty of hydrogen to fuel it
3. Safer; if something goes wrong, it just fizzles out
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| What gas is radioactive, invisible, odorless/tasteless, and naturally occurring? | Radon
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| What is geothermal energy? | The process of using the heat from the ground to make electricity
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| What are the two problems with geothermal energy? | 1. Will eventually cool the ground water and make it a chilled zone.
2. Sometimes smells like sulfur (located in the soil)
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| What country gets almost all of their electricity from geothermal energy? | Iceland; its situated on a series of volcanoes.
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| What are some positive aspects for hydroelectric power? (3) | 1. Cheap
2. Non-polluting
3. Renewable
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| Where is tidal power used? | The Bay of Fundy; tides come in, turning the turbine one way. When they leave the turn the turbine the other way.
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| If we could harness the power of the _____, then we would never have to look into any other form of energy. | Tides
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| What are some drawbacks of wind power? (6) | 1. towers are noisy
2. have to build a lot to get enough power
3. no trees can be around
4. kills birds/bats
5. disrupts local TV and radio signals
6. considered unsightly
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| What are some positives about wind power? (4) | 1. quick and easy to build
2. fastest growing energy source
3. free and renewable
4. non-polluting
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| If you want to become a millionaire, what's a good thing to discover? | A cheap, convenient way to store electricity.
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