ENVR 1402 - CH. 19
Currently, how or where is most spent nuclear fuel stored in the United States?
- Aboveground storage pools - Dry casks
Rank the following areas in terms of proven natural gas reserves. Place the area with the largest proven reserves at the top.
1. Middle East 2. Russia and Eastern Europe 3. North America
What is the abbreviation for the amount of energy it takes to heat one pound of water by one degree F?
BTU
Which type of nuclear reactor design uses water from the reactor to make the steam that turns the turbines, which means that radioactive water leaves the containment structure?
Boiling water reactor
Tar sands add to the oil production in ______, already the largest supplier of oil to the United States.
Canada
On this graph showing coal plant capacity, what country represents the top line?
China
Choose the fossil fuel resource that is most abundant worldwide.
Coal
Which of the following is a consequence of energy production and consumption?
Production and transportation use more than half of the energy available in primary fuels.
Select the two sectors that use the most energy in the United States (in 2014).
Transportation Industrial
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is ______.
a "Clean Coal" technology
Oil refineries are associated with ______.
air pollution and oil spills
The large deposits of tar sands in Canada are located under ______ forest, an especially sensitive habitat.
boreal
The carbon that is captured from coal-fired power plants using CCS technology is stored in ______.
deep geologic formations
The capacity to do work is ______.
energy
The process of splitting atoms into two or more smaller atoms is known as nuclear
fission
Petroleum, natural gas, and coal are all ______.
fossil fuels
The relative amount of rejected energy lost in transportation is _____ that lost in electricity generation.
more than
While being shipped to a site of end use or during use, ______ percent of the energy in primary fuels is lost during conversion to more useful forms.
more than 50
Which of the following are important in controlling the rate of the nuclear reaction in a nuclear fuel assembly?
- Cooling solution - Control rods
The downsides of coal mining can include which of the following?
- Dramatic changes to the landscape - Explosive gases - Black lung disease
Nuclear fission differs from nuclear fusion. Select all the characteristics associated with fusion only.
- Fusion is the primary energy-producing reaction in the sun. - Two smaller atomic nuclei fuse into a larger nucleus.
Breeder reactors produce more fuel than they consume. However, these reactors have many problems including which of the following?
- Liquid sodium must be used as a coolant instead of water. - They produce plutonium that can be refined into weapons-grade plutonium.
Japan has reported successful gas production from methane hydrate deposits deep in the ocean. There are significant risks associated with methane hydrate extraction, shipping, and use. What are they?
- Methane hydrate is volatile and there is a risk of explosion during extraction and shipping. - Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, so greater releases may accelerate climate change.
What type of wastes are created in the nuclear power industry?
- Mine tailings - Low-level: contaminated clothes and tools - High-level: spent fuel rods
Why is use of coal declining worldwide?
- Power plants using different fuels are easier and cheaper to operate. - Alternatives are cleaner.
The downsides of oil production and use can include which of the following?
- Release of volatile organic compounds - Oil spills - High levels of air pollution near petrochemical industries
Which of the following are considering downfalls of shipping liquefied natural gas?
- Seawater is cooled in the process of turning the liquid back into a gas. - The risk of powerful explosions is a serious concern.
Environmental costs of tar sands processing commonly include which of the following?
- The destruction of large tracts of boreal forest - The production of large amounts of toxic sludge - The consumption and likely contamination of large amounts (billions of liters) of fresh water
Which of the following statements correctly describes the history of nuclear energy in terms of the numbers of nuclear plant orders and numbers of plants in operation in the United States?
- The number of plants on order for development peaked in the mid-1970s and sharply declined over the next 20 years. - The number of plants in operation has leveled off since the early 1990s.
What were the key arguments that led to President Obama not approving the Keystone pipeline project in 2016?
- The route would have crossed the Ogallala Aquifer. - Concerns over blowouts and leaks were high.
Even if it was economically feasible to extract oil from oil shales, it is probably not environmentally feasible because ______.
- it produces almost twice as much CO2 (a major greenhouse gas) as conventional oil - of the enormous amounts of waste produced when it is mined - it would require vast quantities of fresh water, which we need for drinking
This image describes how oil is distilled according to ______ to create many different, useful products.
- length of carbon chain - density - boiling point
The formation of oil is associated with ______.
- marine algae and plankton - coastal seas
Breeder reactors are unique in that they ______.
- produce fissionable isotopes - use spent fuel from conventional reactors
In addition to the production of toxic sludge, excess greenhouse gases, and water pollution that occurs during the extraction of oil from tar sands, transporting the oil from tar sands in Canada is problematic because ______.
- the pipelines are probably the easiest way to transport the oil over remote regions, but leaks could be catastrophic in sensitive habitat - if a pipeline is constructed, a significant loss of wildlife habitats results - destruction of habitat could destroy the traditional way of life for native peoples
Match the energy source with its common measurement.
1 barrel of oil is equal to - 42 gallons Natural gas is measured in - cubic meters or feet Coal is measured in - tons or metric tons
Put the following sentences in order to describe how we use coal to generate electricity.
1. Coal is burned to heat water 2. Steam is created and used to turn a generator 3. The generator produces an electric current through the use of wires and magnets
Put the following sources in order by how much they contribute to transportation energy; place the largest contributor on top.
1. Petroleum 2. Biomass 3. Natural Gas 4. Electricity
Rank each of the following, from highest at the top to lowest at the bottom, in terms of their contribution in providing for current global energy needs.
1. Petroleum 2. Natural gas 3. Coal 4. Renewable energy sources 5. Nuclear Power
Rank the following countries by quantity of proven oil reserves. Place the country with the most at the top and least at the bottom.
1. Venezuela 2. Saudi Arabia 3. Canada 4. Iraq 5. United States
What percent (approximate) of our current global energy needs are filled by renewable resources?
10
In a nuclear fuel assembly, pellets of enriched uranium are stacked into metal rods and then approximately ______ of these rods are bundled together.
100
The cost of decommissioning old nuclear plants comes at the end of their life cycle. The designed life span of most nuclear reactors is about ______ years.
30
Middle Eastern countries have about ______ percent of the world's supply of proven oil reserves. (Select the best answer.)
50
Fossil fuels currently account for about ______ percent of the world's commercial energy needs.
80
Match the labels with the correct location on the diagram of a nuclear power plant.
A - Fuel rods B - Reactor core C - Generator D - Cooling tower E - Secondary loop
What is the greatest danger in a nuclear power plant?
A failure in the cooling system, resulting in overheating
As the owner of a coal production company, you are approached by a potential partner who wants to export coal from Argentina. You immediately say no to his proposal because _____.
Argentina has relatively little coal compared to the United States, Russia, and China.
Why does methane (an explosive gas) build up in coal mines?
As coal breaks down, one of the products is methane.
What type of reactor produces more fuel than it uses and can use spent fuel from conventional reactors?
Breeder reactor
Which of the following three energy sources supply almost 80 percent of the world's commercial energy needs at the current time?
Coal Petroleum Natural gas
If a power company proposed building a power plant in your back yard, which type of power plant would be least desirable in terms of excess radiation production during normal operations?
Coal-fired plant
Match the part of a nuclear power plant to its purpose.
Control rods - Moderates the fission chain reactions in the core Primary loop - Carries heated water from the reactor core to the heat exchanger Secondary loop - Carries steam from the heat exchanger to the turbine Turbine - Turns the generator to create electricity
_____________________ is defined as the capacity to do work
Energy
Match the groups of people to how much energy they use per person on average every year.
Europeans - 2,000 kWh Chinese - 500 kWh Americans - 4,500 kWh
True or false: The United States is currently moving forward with plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
False
What nuclear accident was caused by a tsunami that destroyed the emergency power generators causing the cooling pumps to fail, ultimately leading to a meltdown?
Fukushima Daiichi
How can current low oil prices lead to using less oil in the future?
Investors are less likely to support long and expensive project such as pipelines and power plants.
Why is natural gas shipped long distances in liquefied form?
It dramatically reduces the volume so it's cheaper to ship.
Was peak oil reached in the 1970s in the United States as predicted?
It was, but new technologies have made supplies available, so it appears perhaps we haven't reached peak yet.
The arguments against the _______________________ pipeline project, planned to carry oil from tar sands in Alberta to Texas, included its passage over a major U.S. aquifer, the lack of associated jobs, and the use of the oil as an export.
Keystone or Keystone XL
Which of the following statements is not a risk associated with methane hydrate extraction and use?
Large amounts of seawater are needed to warm the methane hydrate, which could have bad effects on coastal ecology.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Marcellus/Devonian formation is rich (about 13 trillion m3) in what fuel source?
Methane
Identify the fossil fuel that burns the cleanest.
Natural gas
Why did proven oil reserves grow by nearly 66% from 1993-2003?
New technologies and discoveries allowed us to obtain oil in remote locations and from different types of deposits.
Most of the world's coals reserves are found in which of the following countries?
Russia China United States
The protest at _____________ _______________ in 2016 was about the placement of the Dakota Access Pipeline near burial grounds, sacred sites, and the Missouri River near the Sioux Reservation.
Standing Rock
Even though the standard of living in Norway is higher than that in the United States, energy consumption per person is less in Norway. What is a possible explanation?
The Norwegians have a lifestyle that promotes energy conservation.
Estimates of the cost to decommission nuclear power plants in the United States are in what range?
The costs range from $200 billion to $1 trillion.
Which of the following statements correctly describes the nuclear reaction in a nuclear power plant?
The design of the nuclear fuel assembly results in a chain reaction of fission, releasing vast amounts of energy.
True or False: This graph shows that coal capacity is expanding in some countries.
True
Match the energy source to the time period it was/is the major source of energy in the United States.
Wood - Colonial to mid-nineteenth century Coal - Industrial revolution Oil - Since the twentieth century
Match the term with its definition.
Work - The application of force over distance Energy - The capacity to do work Power - The rate of energy flow Watt - One joule per second, a measure of power Joule - A measure of work
Rich countries currently have ______ population and use ______ energy compared to poor countries. It appears this trend will ______ in the next 20 years.
a lower; more; change
In the United States, coal plants generate ______ percent of the country's electricity.
about 33
The Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 cost BP and its contractors about $70 _______________ in settlements.
billion
A significant source of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the United States comes from ______.
burning coal to produce electricity
Cheap natural gas prices, tougher regulations, and economic uncertainties all have led to the recent demise _____________________of as an energy source in the United States.
coal
Fossilized plant material that is compressed within sediments over time and eventually can be used as a solid fuel resource is called ___________
coal
The burning of ________________ to product electricity releases CO2, SO2, CO, NOx, arsenic, mercury, lead, uranium, and other compounds into the atmosphere.
coal
The most abundant fossil fuel resource worldwide is _______________. (Use only one word per blank.)
coal
Tougher regulations and falling prices have led to the closing of over 25 ______ companies and 260 mines.
coal
The extraction of natural gas from ______ in the American West has resulted in an uncommon alliance of environmentalists, ranchers, hunters, and anglers that are fighting to preserve water quality and conserve public lands.
coal-beds
In a nuclear power plant, the rate of fission is slowed by the _____________ rods.
control
A meltdown in a nuclear power plant (the biggest danger of nuclear power) can result when there is a failure in the ______.
cooling system
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, in 2010, made apparent the problems of ______ drilling. Over 5 million barrels were lost to the environment, partly because it took 4 months to plug the leak.
deep ocean
The process of oil __________________ cracks long chains of hydrocarbons into shorter ones that have a variety of uses depending on their properties.
distillation, fractionation, or refining
Currently, rich nations consume most of the commercial energy. In 15 years, experts predict ______.
emerging nations will consume the most
The splitting of one atom into two or more is known as nuclear ____________. The combining of two atoms into one larger atom is known as nuclear _______________
fission; fusion
When incompletely decomposed organic matter is compressed and heated over millions of years, ______ are formed.
fossil fuels
The process that can release oil from "tight" geologic formations is called hydraulic _______________
fracturing or fracking
In a nuclear ________________ assembly, enriched uranium pellets are stacked in hollow metal rods; about 100 rods are then banded together.
fuel
In Britain, France, and the former Soviet Union, ______ is used as both a moderator and the structural material for the reactor core.
graphite
Burning natural gas produces about ______ the amount of CO2 (a greenhouse gas) as an equivalent amount of coal.
half
Pumping high-pressure liquids and sand into rock formations causing them to crack in order to recover natural gas is called _______________ fracturing.
hydraulic
Pumping a mixture of water, sand, and potentially toxic chemicals into rock formations at high pressure in order to increase natural gas yields is known as ______.
hydraulic fracturing
Oil and gas form in ______; they then move upward because of their low density and accumulate in ______.
impermeable sediments; porous rocks
The general trend of nuclear energy growth in the United States can best be described as ______.
increasing from the 1960s to the early 1990s but leveling off since then
Coal is a nonrenewable resource because ______.
it takes millions of years to form
As it currently stands, the plan for most radioactive waste in the United States is to ______.
leave it in temporary holding sites around the country
Low oil prices may lead to us using ______ oil because the financial incentive of investors isn't there to support large projects to access the oil.
less
We are using _____ coal compared to what we have used in the past.
less
Breeder reactors are more difficult to operate in part because they use ______ to cool the plant.
liquid sodium
A tremendous amount of natural gas exists in ___________________ hydrates that are found in permafrost and deep ocean sediments.
methane
Leaks of _________________ from cracked and leaking well casings, joints, and valves have a significant impact on climate, as this greenhouse gas is 20 times more effective at retaining heat in the atmosphere than CO2.
methane
When coal breaks down, ___________________ is produced, creating an explosive hazard in underground coal mines.
methane
An unconventional source of natural gas that is found as a collection of methane trapped as small bubbles or as individual molecules in a frozen crystalline matrix is/are known as ______.
methane hydrates
The fuel source made recoverable by hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus/Devonian formation is _________________
methane or natural gas
Acquiring oil from oil shale deposits takes a lot more ______ than if we were getting it from conventional oil deposits.
money water energy
Within the U.S. transportation sector, the biggest use of energy is by _______.
motor vehicles
One of the most dramatic downsides of coal mining is the practice of ________________ removal, when entire sections of land are removed from high elevations to gain access to the coal. Waste rock is often pushed into and fills adjacent lowlands and valleys.
mountaintop
The methane that leaks from well casings, joints, and valves, as well as from ruptured wells, is ______ at warming the atmosphere than CO2 released when using coal and oil.
much more effective
Considering how long it takes coal to form, we describe coal as a ________________ resource.
nonrenewable
The types of waste associated with __________________ power include tailings and liquids; contaminated tools, clothes, and building materials; spent fuel rods; and wastes from weapons production
nuclear
Nuclear power plants work in part by smashing neutrons into uranium atoms, causing them to split into smaller atoms and release more neutrons. This process is called ______.
nuclear fission
Large deposits of sedimentary rock that contain a solid organic material called kerogen are referred to as ______ shales.
oil
New discoveries and technologies resulted in a dramatic increase in proven ___________________ reserves
oil or petroleum
Kerogen is located in ______________ ______________ deposits. The typical example of this type of rock is the Green River Formation in Wyoming.
oil shale
Dr. M. King Hubbert predicted that the maximum production of crude oil worldwide would be followed by a decline in production. This maximum production is known as _______________ oil.
peak
The Standing Rock protest in 2016 was about ______.
placement of the Dakota Access pipeline
Coal is formed from ______.
plant material that is compressed over time
The drilling of wells to acquire natural gas from coal bed deposits requires a lot of water, and each well produces a tremendous amount of ______ that can be hard to dispose of.
polluted water
The rate of work done is represented by the term ____________, and it is measured in ______________
power; watts
In addition to chemical pollutants, coal-fired power plants also release more ______ to the atmosphere than nuclear power plants during normal operations.
radiation
In nuclear fuel assemblies, fission of one uranium atom leads to the fission of nearby uranium atoms, resulting in a chain _______________
reaction
Hydraulic fracturing is a process that ______.
releases oil from "tight" geologic formations
The oil that is formed in shale deposits migrates into more porous sedimentary rocks such as ______; when these rocks are folded in a certain way, the oil gets trapped and creates a concentrated source.
sandstone and limestone
Petroleum is formed from organic molecules trapped in ______, where high pressures and temperatures concentrate and transform them into energy-rich compounds over millions of years.
sediments
The area with the largest proven natural gas reserves is ______.
the Middle East
The transition from coal to oil (petroleum) as the major source of energy in the United States occurred during _______.
the twentieth century
The Fukushima Daiichi power station was destroyed as a result of a(n) ______.
tsunami
The primary fuel source most commonly used in nuclear power plants is an isotope of ______.
uranium
The primary source of fuel in nuclear power plants is an isotope of the element _______________
uranium or U
Dry casks are used as aboveground storage for nuclear _______________ products in the United States.
waste
