Fuels
The fuel that was developed on an industrial scale first
What is coal?
A metric for the amount of energy that raises the temperature of 1 lb of water 1°F
Btu (British thermal unit)
A region of the US where surface coal mining takes place
What is the Powder River Basin? (the West / Wyoming? / North Dakota?)
A solid waste product from burning coal that contains highly toxic heavy metals
What is fly ash?
Two main categories of PV technologies
What are crystalline silicon and thin films?
After a few million years, peat becomes this form of brown coal
What is lignite?
A metric that represents a quantity of energy per unit area or unit volume
What is energy density?
The idea that beyond some point, the cost of recovering petroleum would increase in price as the cost of extraction went up, putting oil into terminal decline
What is Hubbert's peak?
The practice of burning off methane when it is uneconomical to capture or deal with
What is flaring?
This mineral is the beginning of the crystalline silicon supply chain
What is quartz?
The main component of natural gas
Methane (CH4)
Two indicators used to measure energy poverty
What are electricity access and access to clean cooking fuels?
The period of shifting from high birth rates and high infant mortality towards a situation with low birth rates and low death rates
What is the demographic transition?
Agency responsible for running the Underground Injection Control program
What is the EPA?
A system that fractures and cracks heat reservoir rock to maximize the surface area of hot rock as water is passed over it
What are enhanced geothermal systems?
Energy found in nature that has not been subjected to any human conversion process
What is a primary energy source?
A ratio describing the amount of energy put in to extracting an energy source and the energy you get out of it
What is energy return on investment (EROI)?
New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) is an example of this type of organization, responsible for coordinating the distribution of energy on the grid
What is a Regional Transmission Organization (in this case, also an Independent System Operator as well as a balancing authority)?
Two greenhouse gases other than CO2
What are methane / N2O (nitrous oxide)?
Behavioral and economic responses to improved energy efficiency, whose net result is to reduce energy savings
What is the rebound effect? (Jevons' paradox?)
The entities that own most oil reserves
What are national oil companies?
A metric that tells you how long the energy investments in a renewable energy source take to pay off the life-cycle energy investments
What is energy payback time?
This region produces a fuel that may have an EROI of less than one
The corn belt (Midwest US, Iowa, etc.)
Who said this: "Fracking does cause water contamination and pose a risk, but the risk is not widespread"
A 2015 EPA report
Type of power plant that is switched on when demand on the grid is high
What is a peaker plant?