Professional Documents
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Energy Resources
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Investigate
Energy can neither be created nor b) With the approval of your teacher,
destroyed (except in nuclear reactions), carry out your experiment, and
but it can be changed from one form record your observations.
into another. The following activities
3. Five minutes after you fill the cup,
will help you to explore basic concepts
place your hand around each of the
that govern the use of energy.
cups.
Part A: Heat Transfer a) Which one feels hotter? Why?
Station 1
1. Put your hand close to a 100-W light
bulb and notice the heating that Be sure your teacher approves your design before
occurs in your hand. This is similar you begin. The water should not be hot enough to scald.
to the heat generated from direct Wipe up spills immediately. Use alcohol thermometers only.
sunlight.
Station 3
a) Describe what happens to the 1. Set up two solar cookers as shown
temperature of your hand as you in the diagrams below. One is a
move it slowly toward and away standard solar cooker and the other
from the bulb. is an identical solar cooker inside an
b) Hold a piece of paper between insulated box.
your hand and the light bulb. a) What differences do you expect in
Describe and explain the change the temperature inside the two
in temperature of your hand. solar cookers over time? Write
c) Compare and explain the down your hypothesis in your
temperature difference of your notebook.
hand when you hold it above the insulated box
light bulb versus holding it near
the side of the bulb.
Station 2
1. Which cup will keep the water hot
for a longer amount of time, a metal 2. Design an investigation to test your
cup or a Styrofoam® cup? Why? hypothesis. Your design should include
a) Write down your hypothesis. a plan to measure the temperature in
each solar cooker and to record data
2. Design an experiment to test your every minute for at least 25 minutes.
hypothesis.
a) Set up a table to record your data.
a) Record your experimental design
in your notebook.
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3. Place a thermometer in each solar 2. Imagine that you had thrown the clay
cooker and close the lids. You will into the air so that it landed on a
want to be able to read the tabletop. In your group, discuss and
thermometer without blocking the record your ideas about the
path of solar energy and without following:
opening the boxes.
a) How does the kinetic energy of
a) Record and graph the data. the piece of clay change over time?
When is it highest? When is it
4. Use the evidence that you have
lowest?
collected to answer the following
questions: b) How does the potential energy of
the lump of clay change over
a) How did your results compare
time? When is it highest? When is
with your hypothesis?
it lowest?
b) What heating mechanism causes
c) How was kinetic energy
the cookers to heat up in the first
transformed into potential energy?
place?
When did this happen?
c) What are the different heat
d) How was kinetic energy
transfer mechanisms that are
transformed into heat? When
taking place in the cookers? Use
did this happen?
diagrams to record your ideas in
your notebook. e) Find a way to represent the
changes in these three forms of
d) What mechanism keeps the heat
energy over time. Record your
from escaping?
ideas on the sheet of graph paper
e) What improvements could be that shows the path of the
made to the cooker if you had modeling clay.
to do it over again?
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2. Do you think that you can produce 3. Work is defined as the product of a
power equal to that of a 100-W light force times the distance through which
bulb? Obtain and weigh a steel ball. the force acts. The work needed to lift
the steel ball a certain vertical distance
a) Record the weight of the ball in
is the force (weight of the ball, in
newtons. As shown by the
newtons) times the vertical distance, or
conversion tables, a newton is a
unit of force. The weight of the W = F • d,
ball is the same as the force where W is work in joules (J),
exerted on the ball by the pull of F is force in newtons (N), and
gravity. Show your work in your d is the height it is raised in
EarthComm notebook. meters (m).
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Digging Deeper
HEAT AND ENERGY CONVERSIONS Geo Words
Heat Transfer heat: kinetic energy of
atoms or molecules
Heat is really the kinetic associated with the
temperature of a body of
energy of moving molecules. energy flow material.
Temperature is a measure of hot kinetic energy: a form
this motion.The term heat cold
of energy associated with
transfer refers to the motion of a body of
tendency for heat to move matter.
Radiation temperature: a measure
from hotter places to colder Conduction of the energy of
places. Many of the important vibrations of the atoms or
aspects of heat transfer (see molecules of a body of
Figure 1) that you observed matter.
with the solar cooker had to heat transfer: the
movement of heat from
do with heat conduction, rising
one region to another.
heated
which is one of the processes air absolute zero: the
of heat transfer. All matter temperature at which all
consists of atoms. At cold air
vibrations of the atoms
temperatures above absolute and molecules of matter
cease; the lowest possible
zero (about –273°C, the temperature.
coldest anything can be!), the Convection conduction: a process of
atoms vibrate.You sense those heat transfer by which
Figure 1 Three types of heat transfer. the more vigorous
vibrations as the temperature
vibrations of relatively hot
of the material.The stronger the vibration, the hotter the material. matter are transferred to
When a hotter material is in contact with a colder material, collisions adjacent relatively cold
between adjacent vibrating atoms in the two materials cause the energy matter, thus tending to
of the vibrations to even out, cooling the hot material and warming the even out the difference in
temperature between the
cold material. two regions of matter.
Conduction is the type of heat transfer you experience when you take a thermal insulator: a
material that impedes or
hot bath, when you heat a piece of metal, or when the air cools a cup of hot slows heat transfer.
coffee left on top of a table. For instance, when you put a metal pot on the
stove, only the bottom of the pot is in contact with the burner, yet the heat
flows through the entire pot all the way to the handle. Materials differ
greatly in how well they conduct heat. In thermal insulators, like
Styrofoam, crumpled paper, or a down jacket, the heat flows slowly.Thermal
insulators like these contain a large amount of trapped air. Air is a poor
conductor because the air molecules are not in constant contact. Metals, on
the other hand, are very good conductors of heat. Heat conduction is very
important in your community. Keeping your home warm in the winter
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Radiation is important to the community for many reasons. Solar radiation Geo Words
causes things in the community to be heated. Solar radiation heated the potential energy:
solar cooker. It also heats someone standing in the sunshine on a cold mechanical energy
associated with position
winter day, or a parked car in the Sun in the summer with all its windows in a gravity field; matter
closed. If a building is designed appropriately, the heat from the Sun can farther away from the
substitute for heat from other energy resources for space heating and hot center of the Earth has
higher potential energy.
water. Using insulation or light-colored reflective materials reduces solar
chemical energy: energy
heating in warmer months when heat is not desired. stored in a chemical
Energy, Work, and Power compound, which can be
released during chemical
In the investigation, you dealt with four forms of energy: energy of motion, reactions, including
combustion.
called kinetic energy; energy of position, called potential energy; energy
stored in the chemical bonds of a substance, called chemical energy, and mechanical energy:
the sum of the kinetic
heat. Kinetic energy and potential energy together are called mechanical energy and the potential
energy.You know that objects in motion have energy, because of what they energy of a body of
can do to you when they hit you.The energy of motion is called kinetic matter.
energy.The more mass the body has, and the faster it is moving, the more friction: the force exerted
by a body of matter when
kinetic energy it has.When you threw (or imagined throwing) the lump of it slides past another body
modeling clay up in the air, you gave it kinetic energy.The kinetic energy was of matter.
gradually converted to potential energy.When the lump reached its highest
point, its kinetic energy was at a minimum. On the way down, the lump
regained its kinetic energy.When it hit the table, all of its kinetic energy was
changed to heat.The change in
temperature was so small that
you would need a very sensitive
thermometer to measure it.
That’s an example of how kinetic
energy is changed to heat energy
by friction.When you rub your
hands together to keep them
warm, you are converting kinetic
energy to heat by friction. Of
course, you are always
resupplying your hands with
kinetic energy by the action of
your arm muscles.
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In physics, the term work has a very specific meaning.Work is equal to the
Geo Words force you exert on some object multiplied by the distance you move the
work: the product of the object in the direction of the force.The importance of work is that it causes
force exerted on a body and a change in the mechanical energy (kinetic and/or potential) of the object.
the distance the body moves
in the direction of that force; When you threw the lump of modeling clay up in the air, your hand did the
work is equivalent to a change work. It exerted an upward force on the clay for a certain distance to give it
in the mechanical energy of its kinetic energy.
the body.
force: a push or pull exerted Power is the term used for the rate at which work is done or at which
on a body of matter. energy is produced or used.Think once more about the now-famous lump
power: that time rate at of modeling clay.You could have given it its upward kinetic energy by
which work is done on a body swinging your arm upward slowly for a long distance, generating low power
or at which energy is
produced or consumed. but for a long time. Or, you could have swung your arm upward fast over
watt: a unit of power. only a short distance, generating high power but for only a short time.
horsepower: a unit of power.
Whenever your muscles move your own body or some other object, you
biomass: the total mass of
are generating power.The watt is the unit of power that is commonly used
living matter in the form of to describe the power of electrical devices. Horsepower is the unit of
one or more kinds of power that is often used to describe the power of other mechanical devices.
organisms present in a
particular habitat. Converting Heat into Mechanical Energy
You have explored the idea that mechanical
energy always tends to be converted into heat
by friction. Nothing on Earth is completely
frictionless, although some things, like air-hockey
pucks, involve very little friction. Only in the
emptiness of outer space can bodies move
without friction. But how about energy
conversion in the opposite direction: from heat
to mechanical energy?
The conversion of heat into mechanical energy is
central to most of the processes for producing
electricity from energy resources.These
resources include coal, natural gas, petroleum,
sunlight, biomass, and nuclear energy. In these
processes, water is heated to produce steam.
When water boils (at atmospheric pressure) it
undergoes about a thousand-fold increase in
volume.The pressure of the steam exerts a force
that does work to increase the kinetic energy of
Figure 5 Coal is fed by a
a turbine.The steam pressure is used to turn a
conveyor into a combustion turbine that generates electricity.
chamber, where it is burned.
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Inquiring Further
1. Perpetual-motion machines What is a perpetual-motion
machine, and why can no one get
The United States Patent Office
a patent for one?
receives many applications for
perpetual-motion machines. All the
applications are turned down.
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