Energy Production

By Zain Ahmed
 Sankey diagrams
• A Sankey diagram is an arrow block diagram representing energy flows. The
width of the arrow is proportional to the amount of energy being
transferred.
 Nuclear power
• A nuclear reactor is a machine in which nuclear fi ssion reactions take place, producing energy.
Advantages
• High power output
• Large reserves of nuclear fuels
• Nuclear power stations do not produce greenhouse gases
Disadvantages
• Radioactive waste products difficult to dispose of
• Major public health hazard should ‘something go wrong’
• Problems associated with uranium mining
• Possibility of producing materials for nuclear weapons
 Conduction , Convection & Radiation
• The moving electrons collide with neighbouring molecules, transferring energy to them and
so increasing their average kinetic energy. This means that energy is being transferred from
the hot to the cold side of the solid; this is conduction
• In convection, thermal energy moves between two points because o a bulk movement o
matter. This can only take place in a fuid (a liquid or a gas). When part o the fuid is heated
it tends to expand and thus its density is reduced. The colder fuid sinks and the hotter fuid
rises up. Central heating causes a room to warm up because a convection current
• Radiation - Matter is not involved in the transfer of thermal energy by radiation. All objects
(that have a temperature above zero kelvin) radiate electromagnetic waves. If you hold your
hand up to a fire to feel the heat, your hands are receiving the radiation
 blaCk-bODY RaDIaTION: sTEfaN-
bOlTzmaNN law
• I didn’t understand this !
 WIEN’S law
• I didn’t understand this too !
 Equilibrium and emissivity
• If the temperature of a planet is constant, then the power being absorbed by
the planet must equal the rate at which energy is being radiated into space.
The planet is in thermal equilibrium. If it absorbs more energy than it
radiates, then the temperature must go up and if the rate of loss of energy is
greater than its rate of absorption then its temperature must go down.
• Emissivity
The Earth and its atmosphere are not a perfect black body. Emissivity, e, is
defined as the ratio of power radiated per unit area by an object to the power
radiated per unit area by a black body at the same temperature. It is a ratio and
so has no units.
 Albedo
• Some of the radiation received by a planet is reflected straight back into
space. The fraction that is reflected back is called the albedo.
• The Earth’s albedo varies daily and is dependent on season (cloud
formations) and latitude. Oceans have a low value but snow has a high value.
The global annual mean albedo is 0.3 (30%) on Earth.
• albedo = total scattered power / total incident power
 The greenhouse effect
• The greenhouse effect may be described as the warming of the Earth caused
by infrared radiation, emitted by the Earth’s surface, which is absorbed by
various gases in the Earth’s atmosphere and is then partly re-radiated towards
the surface. The gases primarily responsible for this absorption (the
greenhouse gases) are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous
oxide.
 Mechanism of photon absorption
• As for atoms, the energy of molecules is discrete. There are energy levels
corresponding to the energy of molecules due to their vibrational and rotational
motion. The diff erence in energy between molecular energy levels is approximately
the energy of an infrared photon. This means that infrared photons travelling
through greenhouse gases will be absorbed. The gas molecules that have absorbed
the photons will now be excited to higher energy levels. But the molecules prefer to
be in low-energy states, and so they immediately make a transition to a lower-energy
state by emitting the photons they absorbed. But these photons are not all emitted
outwards into space. Some are emitted back towards the Earth, thereby warming the
Earth’s surface
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