Transcript Energy Update! - earthjay science

• Energy Update!
• Homework Assignment Help
• Review Last Lecture
• Energy and Society
• Today’s Material:
• Energy and Society continued
• Heat
• Activity next class
• Next Monday is President’s Day (no class)
http://news.sciencemag.org/earth/2014/02/could-volcanoes-power-world
Could Volcanoes Power the World?
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/02/platetectonics-set-the-thermostat-for-early-animal-life/
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/
42/2/127
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_consumption_conundrum_driving_the_destructio
n_abroad/2266/
The Consumption Conundrum:
Driving the Destruction Abroad
Our high-tech products increasingly make use of rare
metals, and mining those resources can have devastating
environmental consequences. But if we block projects like
the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska, are we simply forcing
mining activity to other parts of the world where
protections may be far weaker?
BY OSWALD J. SCHMITZ AND THOMAS E. GRAEDEL
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/04/3243791/alberta-tar-sands-toxic/
Tar Sands Oil Development Is
More Toxic Than Previously
Thought, Study Finds Katie Valentine
Evaluating officially reported polycyclic aromatic
Abha Parajulee
hydrocarbon emissions in the Athabasca oil sands and Frank Wania
region with a multimedia fate model
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/01/29/1319780111
Our study shows that emissions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons estimated
in environmental impact assessments conducted to approve developments in
the Athabasca oil sands region are likely too low. This finding implies that
environmental concentrations in exposure-relevant media, such as air, water,
and food, estimated using those emissions may also be too low. The potential
therefore exists that estimation of future risk to humans and wildlife
because of surface mining activity in the Athabasca oil sands region has been
underestimated.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/06/3256751/west-coast-offshore-wind/
A Seattle wind company has gotten the
go-ahead to develop plans for a 30megawatt offshore wind pilot project off of
Oregon’s Coos Bay, officials announced
this week.
http://www.governorswindenergycoalition.org/?p=7531
The country’s first floating wind turbine
off the coast of Castine, Maine.
Credit: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
The project, developed
by Principle Power,
would employ five
floating wind turbines
about 15 miles off the
coast of Oregon.
Floating turbine
technology has not
been developed very
much in U.S. before,
but because the West
Coast’s narrow
continental shelf drops
off more steeply than it
does on the East
Coast, wind turbines off
the coast of Oregon
can’t be anchored in
the seabed.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/science/explained/feedbacks http://www.climatevictory.org/feedbacks.html
http://www.bitsofscience.org/geoengineeringinfographic-clouds-1366/
The sun’s electromagnetic spectrum and some of the
descriptive names of each region. The numbers
underneath the curve approximate the percent of energy
the sun radiates in various regions.
0.4 μm = 400 nm
0.7 μm = 700 nm
The hotter sun not only radiates more energy than that of the cooler earth (the area
under the curve), but it also radiates the majority of its energy at much shorter
wavelengths. (The area under the curves is equal to the total energy emitted, and the
scales for the two curves differ by a factor of 100,000.)
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/fischeer/volcanic
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_1
1/1.html
ƛ = c/F
Wavelength = wave speed/frequency
Class Review:
Energy Update!
Energy
Society
Next Class
Forms of Energy
Making Energy
Quantifying Energy
Work
Friction
Estimations
Factors that result from climate change and that can then amplify the causes of climate
change are known as “positive feedbacks.” Some of the key positive feedbacks include
thawing of permafrost (resulting in the release of previously trapped methane), forest
loss due to drought (resulting in the release of carbon sequestrated in the wood) and the
melting of the polar ice-caps (resulting in a reduced capacity to reflect solar energy from
the earth’s surface)
http://www.climate-leaders.org/climate-change-resources/climatechange/causes-of-climate-change