UNIT 6 - 6.1 Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources; 6.

2
Global Energy Consumption; 6.3 Fuel Types and Uses; 6.4
Distribution of Natural Energy Resources
Big Idea
- Energy Transfer
- Energy conversions underlie all ecological processes. Energy cannot be
created; it must come from somewhere. As energy flows through systems,
at each step, more of it becomes unusable.

Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources

● Nonrenweable
○ Combustion of methane.
■ Equation of methane is balanced; atoms of C,H,O are cycled
■ Atoms will be re-used but wont recombine to form more methane at
arate that’ll be available for future generations
■ No more methane to burn after all methane has been extracted and
burned
■ There is loss of usable energy —— a lowering of energy quality
● Renewable
○ Photosynthesis
■ Equation if balanced; atoms of C,H, O are cycled
■ Plant will be eaten by an animal that’ll use sugar for respiration and
CO2 will be returned to atmosphere to be used again
■ There is loss of usable energy —— a lowering of energy quality
■ Sun comes up everyday —-> process happens again
Global Energy Consumption
● ESNTL KNWL:
○ Global distribution of natural energy resources, such as ores, coal, crude
oil, and gas, is not information and depends on regions’ geological history

● Millions of years ago —> plankton, plants, and lagae drifted in oceans and
shallow seas
○ —> died and sank to seafloor were they were buried & crushed under
millions of tons of sediment
■ —> conditions of heat, pressure and time created hydrocarbons
● Diff. locations w/ diff. Conditions of heat, time & pressure created diff. Kinds of
hydrocarbons (fossil fuels):
○ Coal
○ Crude oil
○ Natural gas
● As countries become more industrialized their demand for energy increases
○ Total demand and per capita demand both increase
○ Most of energy will be supplied by fossil fuels

Fuel Types and Uses

● What determines what energy source we use?
● Availability
○ How much is there and how easy is it to extract/process/transport
● Government Regulation
○ Incentivize or disincentivize use of certain fuels and consumption;
increasing taxes (full cost pricing)
● Fossil Fuel Subsidies
○ Gov’t action that lowers cost of energy production from fossil duels
■ Direct funding, tax benefits, loans, research, and
development funding, provide access to resources on
federal lands
 ● All are factors that determine the price ——-> Price determine energy
decisions
● Misconception-solutions to reduce use of fossil fuels
○ Gov’t can raise price of gasoline and pop. wont use as much gas
people wont encounter problems with combustion of gas bc will be
using less (misconception)
■ Gov’t does not set price of fuel ; price of fuel is determined
by the market. Gov;t can determine price paid at gas oup by
heavily taxing or not taxing what is being paid for by gasoline
● Fuelwood and charcoal derived from wood provide over half of the total energy
consumed in the majority developing nations

○
○ Often only source of domestic energy for cooking, boiling water and
heating
○ Negative consequences
■ fuel is burned in open fires, indoors, and poorly vented areas
○ Solutions: venting with a chimney
● Wood
○ Renewable Energy and Sustainable Forestry
○ Wood pellets
■ Made from compacted sawdust and other logging and construction
waste
○ Pellets also made from palm kernel shells, coconut shells, and branches
discarded during logging operations
● Peat

○ Not a form of coal

 ○ Brown deposit resembling soil formed by partial decomposition of
vegetable matter in wet acidic conditions like a log. Often cut out and dried
for use as fuel and in gardening
○ Anthracite has high heat, low sulfur, and is limited in supply
● Combustion of Coal for Electricity
○ Burn coal -> heat water -> steam turns turbine connected to a generator
Chemical I Energy —> Heat Energy —> Mechanical Energy —> Electrical
Energy (second law of thermodynamics)

● Cogeneration
○ Fuel source is used to generate both useful heat and electricity
■ Utilizes steam left over from electricity generation to produce heat

● Natural gas (cleanest fossil fuels)

 ○ Fossil fuel usually found in a lawyer above oil
■ Mostly methane (CH4)
○ Capped by an impervious layer
○ Major uses are home heating and industry
○ Advantages
■ Cleanest burning fossil fuels bc
● Releases less CO2
● Has less sulfur
● Has less particulates
■ Supplies are plentiful
■ Cheap
○ Disadvantages
■ Non-renewable fossil fuel and releases CO@ when burned
■ Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking) the process used to extract methane
produces large quantities of hazardous waste
■ Fracking releases CH4, a very potent greenhouse gas into air &
waster supply surrounding wells
● Tar sands (dirtiest fossil fuel)

---> after —>

○ Mixture of sand, clay, water, and thick crude oil substance called bitumen
○ Habitat destruction
 ■ Old growth boreal forest is clear cut on massive scale to access
hydrocarbons
● Area can not be reforested
● What do we do with crude oil?
○ Crude oil
■ must be redefined (fractional distillation)
■ Crude oil is transferred via a pipeline to refineries, which require
large amounts of water
■ Petroleum products are separated based on differences in boiling
points
○ Petrochemicals
■ Petroleum and natural are the source of carbon atoms for any
synthetic organic compound including pesticides, plastics, food
additives, pharmaceuticals

Distribution of Natural Energy Resources

● Uneven distribution of resources

- Light yellow, orange, to red shows the amount of energy used

● The use of energy is not evenly distributed between developed and developing
countries
Describe and compare total resource use per capita in developed ad developing
countries
Takeaways
1. While natural oil is the cleanest fossil fuel, it still has various negative drawbacks.
2. Throughout the globe there is an uneven distribution of resources, with some
countries lacking and some countries having high amounts of resources, such as
energy.
3. As countries shift to becoming more industrialized, their total demand and per
capita demand for energy increases
4. Both renewable and nonrenewable energy undergo a loss in usable energy
5. Different locations with different conditions have different types of fuel sources.

FRQ

There are various fuel types and uses that accompany them.
i. IDENTIFY one type of fuel type. (1 point)
ii. IDENTIFY and DESCRIBE a negative outcome or disadvantage from using
that fuel type. (2 points)