Download Bio H - Ecology Alternative Energy Sources Use the following

Bio H - Ecology
Alternative Energy Sources
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Use the following website as a source of information to answer the following questions:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=about_home
1.
What is the fundamental difference between renewable and nonrenewable energy sources?
2. List all the types of energy they discuss on the page under the proper headings below:
Nonrenewable Sources
Renewable Sources
3. What percentage of the US’s 2008 energy consumption was powered by fossil fuels? ______________
4. What percentage of the US’s 2008 energy consumption was powered by renewable resources? _____________
In the left margin, click on Sources of energy
5. What is the difference between primary and secondary energy sources? Provide two examples of secondary
energy sources.
Click on Energy and the Environment  Greenhouse Gases
6. What is the benefit of naturally existing greenhouse gases?
7. Ozone is both necessary and a pollutant. Explain how ozone can be both.
Bio H - Ecology
Click on More About Greenhouse Gases’ Effect on Climate.
8. Describe the impact that the industrial revolution had on both the production of CO2 and the concentration of
CO2 in the atmosphere. Support your answer with data provided in the text and/or graphs.
9.
What is the impact of the antropogenic carbon emissions on the carbon cycle? Again, support your answer with
data from the website.
Click on Nonrenewable resources (back in the margin) and then on Nuclear
10. Differentiate between the two types of energy releasing processes listed below:
a. Nuclear fission:
b. Nuclear fusion:
11. What is the chemical difference between Uranium and Uranium-235? (looking at the periodic table and thinking
back to our chem. Unit might help)
12. Why is the nuclear fission reaction with uranium-235 called a chain reaction?
13. Click the Data and statistics tab and provide the following stats: (yes some calculations are involved)
a. What percentage of the world’s Nuclear power plants are found in the US?
b. What percentage of electricity is produced through nuclear reactions?
Bio H - Ecology
c. Look at the data at the bottom. According to the data, France generates 77% of its energy using Nuclear
power while the US only generates 20% of its power this way. However the US contributes 31% of the
WORLD’S nuclear energy. What do these statistics tell us about the relative amount of energy
consumed by the US compared to France?
Click on Nuclear power and the environment
14. Discuss the ecological pros and cons of nuclear energy. You may make a table listing the pros and cons.
Click on each of the subheadings under Renewable Sources and summarize the following:
a.
b.
c.
d.
What is it? How does it work?
Percentage of US energy consumption provided by it?
Ecological pros and cons
Economic pros and cons (You may have to research elsewhere for this info, BUT be careful, you want a
reliable, non-biased, NON-COMMERCIAL, resource for this information. )