APES Midterm
Natural gas is often priced in units of dollars per therm. One therm equals 100,000 BTUs. A certain family uses 600 therms of energy to heat its home annually using a natural gas furnace that is 80 percent efficient. The family is considering replacing its current furnace with one that is percent efficient. Assuming the cost of a therm is $0.30, which of the following would be the family's annual savings in the cost of home heating?
$28.80
A family of four lives in a three-bedroom house and uses an average of 900 kWh of electricity per month. The family cools their house for three months during the summer with two window-unit air conditioners that each use 350 kWh of electricity per month. Which of the following is the percentage of the family's total annual electricity that is used to run the two air conditioners for the three summer months?
19.4%
The average vehicle releases 1.39 grams of NOx per mile driven. If a vehicle is driven 22,000 miles per year for 15 years, how much NOx does that vehicle release
458,700 grams
Which of the following describes a component of a modern sanitary landfill?
A bottom liner of plastic or clay to prevent groundwater contamination
(A) Sanitary landfill (B) Incineration (C) Discharge to sewers, streams, and rivers (D) Chemical treatment (E) Biological treatment Which method introduces microorganisms to break down hazardous organic compounds?
Biological treatment
Some toxic compounds are ingested and retained in the tissues. These pollutants pose special risks to humans and other organisms high on the food chain because of which process?
Biomagnification
Which of the following are direct products of the use of hydrocarbon fuels in automobile engines?
CO2, NOx, and VOCs
Which of the following describes an environmental problem that can result from the combustion of fossil fuels to generate electricity?
Carbon dioxide is a product of the combustion fossil fuels, and it can lead to global climate change when released into the atmosphere.
(A) Safe Drinking Water Act (B) Clean Water Act (C) Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) (D) Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (E) Toxic Substances Control Act Mandates the restoration and maintenance of the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters
Clean Water Act
Which of the following is the most likely route for mercury to enter the food web?
Coal-burning emissions → deposition → ocean → plankton → fishes
Which of the following would most likely reduce the concentration of ground-level ozone in the air of a city?
Decrease in the emissions of nitrogen oxides
Alligators in a Florida lake polluted by high levels of dioxins (chlorinated hydrocarbons) had low testosterone levels and failed to reproduce. Scientists came to the conclusion that the dioxins were acting as which of the following?
Endocrine disrupters
Which of the following characteristically produces non-point-source pollution?
Erosion from agricultural land
Which of the following examples includes both a point and a nonpoint source of pollution?
Fertilizer from suburban lawns and wastewater from a water treatment plant
For a certain insecticide, the LD-50 dosage level for rats is determined to be 250 milligrams per kilograms of body mass. On the basis of this information, which of the following is the best prediction regarding the consequences of receiving this dosage of the insecticide?
Five hundred out of every one thousand rats would die.
Which of the following best describes an environmental problem associated with hydrologic fracturing, or fracking?
Fracking fluids can escape from the drill hole and contaminate surface water and groundwater.
Which of the following energy sources produces the most air pollutants when used during the generation of electricity?
Fuel oil
The presence of which of the following contaminants would be the strongest reason for judging municipal sewage sludge unfit for use as fertilizer?
Heavy metals
The use of nitrogen-based fertilizers in the Midwestern United States is a major contributing factor to which of the following?
Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico
(A) Sanitary landfill (B) Incineration (C) Discharge to sewers, streams, and rivers (D) Chemical treatment (E) Biological treatment Which method reduces the volume of waste but could release toxic emissions into the atmosphere?
Incineration
Of the following, which is the most serious immediate problem associated with sanitary landfills?
Leachate contamination of groundwater
(A) Radon (B) Mercury (C) Lead (D) Copper (E) Iron Poses a health risk to humans who eat large quantities of marine fish such as swordfish and tuna
Mercury
A.) Carbon dioxide B.) Carbon monoxide C.) Methane D.) Radon E.) Sulfur dioxide which flammable gas is produced by landfills?
Methane
In addition to volatile organic compounds which of the following components must be present in the atmosphere to create photochemical smog?
NOx and UV light
Chemical compound that can cause algal blooms and cultural eutrophication in streams
Nitrates
Of the following sources, which supplies the most commercial energy in the world today?
Oil
Which of the following best explains why top predators can have up to 60 times as much of persistent organic pollutant as their prey and up to 600 times as much of the pollutant as producers?
POPs accumulate in the body fat of living organisms. POPs increase in concentration as they move up the food chain.
Which of the following best describes the conditions under which peat is formed?
Partially decayed vegetation is placed under high-pressure, anaerobic, acidic conditions.
Which of the following environmental problems is most often linked to the combustion of fossil fuels?
Photochemical smog formation in the troposphere
Which of the following strategies will best reduce eutrophication in the Chesapeake Bay?
Regulating the use of inorganic fertilizer in the Susquehanna River watershed
Which of the following is a way for the government to encourage efficient energy use?
Requiring higher fuel economy standards for new cars
Waste from which of the following is an example of nonpoint source pollution?
Runoff from agricultural fields
(A) Safe Drinking Water Act (B) Clean Water Act (C) Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) (D) Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (E) Toxic Substances Control Act Requires minimum safety standards for community water supplies
Safe Drinking Water Act
Which of the following has the largest proven coal reserves?
The United States
Which of the following is the best description of bioaccumulation?
The absorption of a substance by an organism at a rate greater than the rate of elimination
Acid rain is associated with which of the following?
The burning of fossil fuels
The water used in this type of power plant is often released back into a reservoir. Which of the following effects could this released water have on the reservoir?
The temperature of the released water causes a decrease in the amount of dissolved oxygen in the reservoir.
Which of the following best describes the process known as "mountaintop removal"?
The use of heavy equipment to move overburden downhill during the strip mining of coal
Which of the following is true of sewage treatment plants in the United States?
They are not designed to remove pharmaceutical chemicals from wastewater.
The primary cause of acid precipitation in the northeastern United States is
burning of sulfur-containing fossil fuels to produce electricity
An advantage of using natural gas, rather than oil, as a fuel is that natural gas is
cleaner because it burns more completely
The majority of atmospheric mercury is produced by
coal-burning power plants
One solution for reducing the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide would be to
decrease the use of fossil fuels
Factors that increase the spread of infectious diseases include all of the following EXCEPT
exposure to neurotoxins, which affect the endocrine system
In a river ecosystem, dissolved oxygen concentrations drop quickly downstream from a point-source input of organic matter into the river. This effect is due to
increasing bacterial activity as organic matter decays
The three main anthropogenic sources of gaseous air pollutants in the United States are
industry, transportation, and energy production
Three common methods employed in the cleanup of oil spills are
large floating booms, skimmer boats, and genetically engineered bacteria
Ground-level ozone in most major United States cities results primarily from
motor-vehicle exhaust
In the United States, the largest single component of municipal solid waste is
paper
There are various stages in the formation of coal as heat and pressure are increased and moisture content is decreased. These stages, in order, are
peat, lignite, bituminous, anthracite
Of the following strategies to decrease the landfill volume of packaging material from food and other consumer products, the most energy efficient is
promoting the use of reusable containers for consumer goods
Most municipal solid waste in the United States is disposed of in
sanitary landfills
