Energy Production Exercises

1 Combustion

The EPA Reports that in 2019, the fossil fuel emissions in the US was 6577 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (equivalent). Recall that 12 kg of carbon produce 44 kg of carbon dioxide. How many kilograms of coal must be burned to generate this much carbon dioxide? You can assume that this coal is pure carbon.

2 Bakken Production

The Bakken formation is producing 1.1 million barrels of oil per day. If the oil is selling at 80 USD/barrel,

  • What is the amount of money the region is producing each second?

3 Worldwide Flaring

Worldwide, 14 billion ft^3 of natural gas are flared every day instead of captured and sold. In 2020, natural gas sold for approximately $1 per one hundred cubic feet.

  • What is the rate of gas being burned in ft^3 per minute?
  • What is the monetary value of the natural gas lost each day?
  • What is the equivalent power released as heat in watts? Assume natural gas has energy density of 1040 BTU/ft^3.

4 Nuclear Fuel

Assume an estimate for the energy density of Uranium 235 as 80 million MJ/kg. Further assume that all of this energy can be consumed in the nuclear fuel. Assume a power plant efficiency of 35%. The US consumed 3.9 trillion kWh of electricity in 2019. How many kilograms of uranium would provide this much electricity?

5 Solar Efficiency

Solar photovoltaic panels are only about 18% efficient at converting the sun’s radiant energy into electrical energy.

  • If 5 kWh of radiant energy strike a solar panel throughout a day, what amount of electrical energy is produced?
  • If you want to generate 5 kWh of electrical energy, how much solar radiation energy do you need to strike your solar panel?

6 Wind Power per Area

We have a large windfarm with 10 2 MW turbines on a total land area of 85 acres.

  • What is the wind power per area for this windfarm in units of MW per acre?

Note, this is similar to an energy density.

7 Water Energy Per Day

The Three Gorges Dam is capable of generating 22.5 GW of electrical power. If the dam generates this power for an entire day, how much energy is created in petajoules (PJ)?

8 Combustion Reading

Please read the ERG 100 Combustion Toolkit and answer the following questions.

  • What gasses are commonly released by burning of hydrocarbons?
  • Why does coal produce more carbon dioxide per kilogram of coal burned than when a kilogram of methane is burned?

9 H&K 7 Fossil Fuels / EPA Fracking Summary

Read H&K Chapter 7 on Energy from Fossil Fuels and the EPA Fracking Executive Summary and answer the following questions.

  • What is the difference between a proven reserve and a resource?
  • How are natural gas and gasoline different?
  • Which environmental consequences from fossil fuels are you most concerned about and why?

10 Mackay Nuclear Energy

Read Chapter 24 “Nuclear?” from Mackay, Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air and answer the following questions.

  • Why is the energy density of nuclear fuel like uranium so much higher than fossil fuels?
  • What is nuclear energy primarily used for in our energy system?
  • What are the main environmental advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy?

11 Solar Technology Reading

Read Chapter 6 “Solar” from Mackay, Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air and answer the following questions. (You may also be interested in Appendix D.)

  • Why is the power per area number used in this chapter useful?
  • How does power per area help us compare solar photovoltaics and biofuels?

12 Solar Environmental Reading

Please read the “Sustainability of utility-scale solar energy - critical ecological concepts” article and pick a section you are interested in discussing in class.

  • What about that section did you find interesting?
  • How would you summarize the concerns in that section?

13 Wind Technology Reading

Please read Chapters 4 and 10 from Mackay, Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air and answer the following question.

  • What are the key pros and cons of wind on land and offshore wind?

14 Wind Environmental Reading

Here are two readings on the enviromental impacts of windmills.

Here is a white paper on environmental concerns and here is a news article on bird deaths in Australia. Please answer the following questions.

  • What are the key environmental impacts of windmills?
  • What are potential strategies to mitigate these impacts?

15 Hydropower Technology Reading

Read this post from the Union of Concerned Scientists about hydropower basics and respond to these questions.

  • What are the energy conversion processes to create hydropower?

16 Hydropower Environmental Reading

Read this post from the Union of Concerned Scientists and respond to these questions.

  • Which of the environmental impacts are you most concerned about and why?

17 Biomass Reading

Read this article on biomass wood pellets and respond to the following questions.

  • What are the aspects of wood pellet production that reduce or increase the release of carbon into the atmosphere?
  • What are the aspects of wood pellet production that support or reduce ecosystem health?
  • How are wood pellets turned into electricity?
  • What further evidence and information would you want before supporting or preventing increasing wood pellet use?

18 Energy Production Summary

Now that we have finished up our study of different energy production from different sources, you can answer a couple of open-ended questions to get you thinking about the connections between what we’ve covered.

  • What commonalities do you see between the ways that we produce energy?
  • What are the most compelling reasons for developing new or preserving existing energy production technologies?
  • What skills and knowledge would you like to continue to develop?

Mekong River Case Study